Ivanka backs fund for women SMEs
washington — Ivanka Trump, President Donald Trump’s daughter and a White House advisor, touted the creation of a new World Bank initiative to foster entrepreneurship among women.
The initiative launched last week, the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative or We-Fi, aims to boost access to capital for businesswomen in the developing world.
“Fully unleashing the power of women in our economy will create tremendous value but also bring much-needed peace, stability and prosperity to many regions,” Trump said during an event at the annual meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.
Women-owned businesses in the developing world suffer an annual credit deficit of $300 billion, either by being unable to borrow or receiving only high-cost, shortterm credit, she noted.
“They say that women invest 90 cents on the dollar back in their family, their family’s education, their family’s health and their community at large,” she said.
World Bank president Jim Yong Kim described Trump as the “driving force” behind the new initiative, which had received $350 million in donor commitments.
The US itself pledged $50 million to the fund in July, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Trump proposed We-Fi at the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany. The initiative is supported by Germany, Russia, China, Japan, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, among other countries.
“You can’t imagine a society that grows if you don’t operationalise half the population of that society,” Reem Ibrahim Al Hashemi, the UAE Minister of State for International Cooperation, said at the event. “We’ve seen that if you provide opportunities for women farmers, that goes back into the community.” — AFP