Integrating Gender and Women's Financial Inclusion Into the Central Bank of Egypt's (CBE) Framework

Insights on a number of regulatory reforms to boost women’s financial inclusion

32 pages

Egyptian women, who constitute half of the population, represent tremendous economic potential while contributing to only 22.5 percent of total labor force. Among female-owned small and medium enterprises, there is an estimated credit demand of $283 million.

The Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) has achieved major accomplishments towards building an inclusive financial system, through introducing a number of initiatives to provide financially underserved households and female micro, small and medium enterprise owners with an opportunity to be part of the formal financial system. This has been achieved through working on a number of pillars that include:

Enabling the legal and regulatory framework conditions.
Modernizing the financial infrastructure.
Building comprehensive gender-disaggregated data, complemented with the supply side data from financial institutions.

This case study shares in-depth insights into how CBE and national stakeholders have exerted substantial efforts to address gender and women’s financial exclusion.