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An impact fund to support women entrepreneurs in Central America
On Friday 24 May 2024, the Female Entrepreneurship Fund (FEF) was launched at an event organised by IforD in Luxembourg. As a result of a multi-stakeholder partnership, this blended finance impact fund is helping to shape the future of female entrepreneurship in Central America by improving the financial inclusion of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) run by women.
The FEF was created as part of the Regional Programme for the Promotion of Women's Entrepreneurship in Central America, financed by the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs, Defence, Development Cooperation and Foreign Trade (MFA) and implemented by LuxDev, the Luxembourg Development Cooperation Agency, and CENPROMYPE, the Centre for the Promotion of Micro, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises of the Central American Integration System (SICA). Luxembourg’s Development Cooperation has chosen to invest four million euros in the FEF, to incentivize the private sector to contribute more systematically and strategically to its development objectives.
“Ensuring financial inclusion of female entrepreneurs in Central America is essential for catalyzing economic development and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, as it enhances innovation, alleviates poverty, and advances gender equality. This is where the FEF will come in, which is why we, in line with our current projects in Central America, have decided to provide the initial sponsorship and the concept for setting up the technical assistance programme through LuxDev, our implementing agency", emphasises Christophe SCHILTZ, Director for Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Affairs.
"CENPROMYPE and the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg have been working together on female entrepreneurship since 2018. The launch of the FEF is one more step in the consolidation of this strategic alliance in favour of women entrepreneurs in the SICA region", adds David CABRERA, Managing Director of CENPROMYPE.
Promoting the economic autonomy of women entrepreneurs
The FEF aims to strengthen the financial inclusion of women entrepreneurs and improve their access to financial products and services, enabling them to seize more market opportunities and thereby contribute to the region's development. In Central America, SMEs run by women are sorely lacking access to finance tailored to their needs and face a series of obstacles linked to the social and cultural biases that persist in the region. "The FEF is a key element in changing the way in which local financial institutions approach and assess the risks of women-led SMEs, thereby increasing the number and volume of loans and the amount of credit granted to them", explains Manuel TONNAR, Director General of LuxDev.
Alongside the fund, a technical assistance programme will be set up. Its aim is to support the financial institutions in which the FEF invests, as well as the women-led SMEs that are clients of these institutions. By combining financial and technical support, the purpose is to demonstrate that it is possible to innovate, as a financial institution, to include the women-led SMEs segment in the investment portfolio, without damaging it. By combining financial and technical support, the purpose is to demonstrate that it is possible to innovate, as a financial institution, to include the women-led SMEs segment in the investment portfolio, without damaging it.
CENPROMYPE promoter
With its in-depth knowledge of the challenges faced by SMEs, the factors that determine their growth and the specific issues affecting women-led businesses, CENPROMYPE has positioned itself as a promoter of the FEF. "With a desire to build bridges between women-led businesses and the financial ecosystem, we identified the need to create a financial vehicle that would provide a sustainable response to the lack of funding for women entrepreneurs", David CABRERA points out.
A first for LuxDev
LuxDev, for its part, supported CENPROMYPE in the reflections that led to the structuring of the FEF. "LuxDev has already been involved in the management of a technical assistance facility for an impact fund. However, this is the first time we have contributed to the process of setting up a fund", emphasises Manuel TONNAR.
A Luxembourg-regulated fund
From a technical point of view, the FEF is part of SICAV IforD, a public limited company incorporated as an alternative investment fund, regulated in Luxembourg, and benefiting from the European passport. IforD's structure was particularly useful in setting the FEF up. In an increasingly complex regulatory environment, it is becoming more and more complicated for small funds such as the FEF to function alone. IforD, through its umbrella fund platform, offers a solution to navigate this environment. As funds and the ideas behind them grow, they can evolve into their own legal form. "IforD does not offer this as a service to the impact fund market but will actively involve itself in a select project where it can actively contribute. This is the case for FEF and we are excited to play our part in the development of the fund", says Kaspar WANSLEBEN, Director of Asset Servicing at iForD.
Convincing other investors to join the fund
As investment advisor, Total Impact Capital is responsible for identifying potential financial intermediaries in which the FEF could invest and for monitoring those in which it has invested. Using its knowledge of local financial institutions, Total Impact Capital will identify the banks, credit cooperatives and microfinance institutions best suited to increase access to credit for women-owned and led SMEs. It will then assess their ability to take on financing from FEF and structure the financing in the most appropriate way. Once a loan has been disbursed, it will monitor its performance, ensuring that the funding increases access to credit for women-owned and led SMEs and that it does so in a financially sustainable way.
For the time being, LuxDev, on behalf of the MFA, is the anchor investor. "We expect other official donors and private foundations to join LuxDev in the most concessional tranche of capital. We then expect impact investors committed to the region to provide the commercial equity and debt capital", concludes John SIMON, Founder and Managing Partner of Total Impact Capital.
