Closing the gender gap with pro-female entrepreneurship policies

Policies that encourage female entrepreneurship, such as facilitating credit access and business development programmes can help close the gender gap for poor women, said the World Bank.

This comes amid a rise in e-commerce, which is giving sellers broader market reach and as entrepreneurship is becoming a more viable route to economic recovery. In the Philippines, the pandemic has triggered a significant shift in the workforce toward less productive sectors and occupations.

The World Bank reported that there has been a concentration of these trends among youths and workers with the lowest levels of education, suggesting that the recovery will be uneven and incomes will be stagnant.

“The Philippines can leverage the crisis generated by the pandemic to promote necessary reforms to support skills development and promote inclusive recovery,” said the World Bank, adding that this can be done through training programmes to reskill and upskill workers, providing entrepreneurship support to drive innovation and job creation, and increasing the uptake of booster vaccines.

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“Policies should aim to support skills development, promote inclusive recovery, foster an environment that encourages entrepreneurship, promote inclusive structural transformation, and encourage the growth of high-productivity sectors,” the World Bank said.