The Philippines has maintained its score in a recent World Bank index which looks into laws and regulations that affect women’s economic opportunities.
According to the report released yesterday titled, Women, Business and the Law 2022, the Philippines scored 78.8 in the 2022 index, same as the previous year’s score.
The Philippines’ score is above the average global score of 76.5 out of 100.
The report used eight indicators to compute the overall score: mobility, workplace, pay, marriage, parenthood, entrepreneurship, assets and pension.
The Philippines scored high in workplace, pay and entrepreneurship with perfect scores of 100 each.
Scores of 75 each were indicated for mobility and pension, while the remaining indicators of marriage, parenthood and assets received scores of 60 each.
In a statement, the World Bank said around 2.4 billion women of working age globally are not afforded equal economic opportunity and 178 countries maintain legal barriers that prevent their full economic participation.
Meanwhile, internal estimates of InBest Ventures showed funding for women enterprises in the Philippines faces a gap of about P30 billion.
David King Pangan, co-founder and co-managing partner of InBEST said at the Macquarie Investing in Women RISE Fund event yesterday compared to Thailand which allots 37 percent of their GDP to lending to small and medium enterprises (SMEs), the Philippines only sets 3 percent.
That’s just about P11 billion.
If the amount is increased to 30 to 40 percent, lending to MSMEs could reach to P120 billion. As one in four SMEs is woman-led, that would come up to P30 billion.
InBest Ventures is one of those assisted by Investing in Women and Macquarie, an initiative jointly undertaken with the Australian government.
In the same event, Australian ambassador Steven Robinson cited a World Bank report that said an increase of a mere half a percent a year of women in the labor force in the Philippines would increase GDP per capita by almost 10 percent by 2050.
Robinson said Macquarie RISE fund was launched to catalyze much-needed investments into women SMEs as a crucial component to effective economic response and recovery from the pandemic.
The partnership with the Macquarie Group Foundation, and InBest and Foundation for a Sustainable Society Inc. resulted in investments in 13 women SMEs. – Angela Celis and Irma Isip
