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Inclusive finance and entrepreneurship
Access to finance is essential for economic participation, business growth and innovation. Yet significant gaps remain across many EBRD economies.
Women-led businesses, young entrepreneurs, remote regions and other underserved segments often face barriers when seeking access to finance, markets, networks and business support.
The EBRD works with partner financial institutions, regulators, governments and business organisations to build more inclusive financial systems and support entrepreneurship.
What we do
Our activities include:
- expanding access to finance for women-led businesses
- supporting youth entrepreneurship
- promoting the financial inclusion of financially underserved regions and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)
- supporting the economic reintegration and financial inclusion of veterans and war-affected communities in Ukraine
- strengthening digital financial services
- supporting underserved SME segments via advisory services and business training
- helping financial institutions to reach underserved customer segments
- promoting inclusive financial-sector policy reform
Key programmes
The Bank supports entrepreneurs through the provision of finance, advisory services and capacity building, as well as policy dialogue, helping businesses to start operating, grow and become more competitive. By strengthening access to finance and economic opportunity, we help to unlock the full economic potential of individuals, businesses and economies. Key initiatives in this area include:
- the Women Entrepreneurs (WE) Finance Code
- Women in Business (WiB)
- Youth in Business (YiB)
- cross-thematic programmes with a human capital component (such as the Green Economy Financing Facility (GEFF), GCF Greening Financial Systems (GFS), SME Go Digital, SME Go Green, SME Competitiveness and Inclusion, and Green & Growth)
Case study
WE Finance Code: data-driven finance for women-led businesses
The Women Entrepreneurs (WE) Finance Code, implemented by the EBRD with support from the WE Finance Initiative, is a global framework that mobilises financial institutions and public actors to close the financing gap for women-led micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs).
The EBRD’s implementation of the WE Finance Code has already generated significant momentum in expanding access to finance for women-led MSMEs and reshaping how financial systems serve women entrepreneurs. Anchored in central banks and supported by close collaboration with private, public and ecosystem partners, including banking and microfinance associations, this approach has helped to build national ownership, strengthen sustainability and lay the foundations for systemic change.
This progress is demonstrated by the code’s expansion to 14 countries and the mobilisation of a broad national stakeholder base. The code now has more than 220 signatories, including 70 banks, 90 microfinance and non-bank financial institutions, and 60 public-sector institutions and industry associations. In several markets, these signatories represent more than 90 per cent of the financial sector, giving the code the scale, credibility and convening power that is needed to support coordinated market action. This institutional platform has translated into more than 800 commitments under the code’s leadership, data and action pillars, while eight sex-disaggregated data dashboards have helped to shift implementation from commitment-setting to evidence-based decision-making.
By embedding gender-related objectives in institutional strategies and linking them to monitoring and incentives, the code helps markets to pivot from ad hoc women’s programmes to systemic change. This directly advances the Gender Equality and Human Capital Strategy’s objective of building inclusive and gender-responsive financial systems, enabling more women to launch and scale up businesses, create jobs and participate fully in the economy.
