Coordinator to Minister of State and Federal Tax Ombudsman Meher Kashif Younis Sunday stressed the need of enhancing women’s access to finance and providing credit to women-led small and medium-sized enterprises for strengthening the economy besides creating ample job opportunities in Pakistan.
Speaking as a keynote speaker at a seminar on ” Better Access of Women to Micro Credit” organised under the aegis of Gold Ring Economic Forum, a strategic think-tank, he added that inclusive, resilient and sustainable development cannot be achieved if women do not have equal economic opportunities and benefits.
Meher Kashif said it’s the need of the hour that Pakistan’s current financing ecosystem must improve women’s access to much-needed finance and empower them to boost their livelihoods while contributing significantly to the economy. There are many women entrepreneurs in Pakistan, but they remain unrecognized, being small and informal in nature and lacking the incentives to register their businesses formally or to grow, he observed.
“Our policies must recognise the importance of women entrepreneurship and create an enabling environment that increases women’s participation in the formal economy and gives them more opportunities to grow their businesses, he remarked.
Meher Kashif Younis, who is also Chairman Kyrgyzstan Trade House in Pakistan and Vice President Gold Ring Economic Forum, said policy-based loans should support reforms that incorporate women’s needs into national policies, such as the State Bank of Pakistan’s Banking on Equality Policy that, among a range of measures, requires banks to establish departments dedicated to providing services to women.
The coordinator said the financial intermediation loan, meanwhile, is expected to benefit around two million women entrepreneurs, including about 510,000 who previously had no access to finance, through lending via participating financial institutions. He said the expected grant from the Asian Development Fund (ADF) will finance activities such as the development of financial literacy programmes and a digital platform that links women to financial services. The ADF provides grants to ADB’s poorest and most vulnerable developing member countries, he concluded.
