A BILL 
To improve programs and activities relating to women’s en-
trepreneurship and economic empowerment that are car-
ried out by the United States Agency for International 
Development, and for other purposes. 
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Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Women’s Entrepreneur-
ship and Economic Empowerment Act of 2018’’. 
SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 
Congress finds the following: 
(1) Because women make up the majority of the 
world’s poor and gender inequalities prevail in in-
comes, wages, access to finance, ownership of assets, 
and control over the allocation of resources, women’s 
entrepreneurship and economic empowerment is im-
portant to achieve inclusive economic growth at all 
levels of society. Research shows that when women 
exert greater influence over household finances, eco-
nomic outcomes for families improve, and childhood 
survival rates, food security, and educational attain-
ment increase. Women also tend to place a greater 
emphasis on household savings which improves fami-
lies’ financial resiliency. 
(2) A 2016 report by the McKinsey Global Insti-
tute estimated that achieving global gender parity in 
economic activity could add as much as $28 trillion 
to annual global gross domestic product (GDP) by 
2025. 
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(3) Lack of access to financial services that ad-
dress gender-specific constraints impedes women’s eco-
nomic inclusion. More than one billion women 
around the world are currently left out of the formal 
financial system, which in turn causes many women 
to rely on informal means of saving and borrowing 
that are riskier and less reliable. Among other con-
sequences, this hampers the success of women entre-
preneurs, including those seeking to run or grow 
small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The 
International Finance Corporation has estimated that 
70 percent of women-owned SMEs in the formal sec-
tor are unserved or underserved in terms of access to 
credit, amounting to a $285 billion credit gap. 
(4) Women’s economic empowerment is inex-
tricably linked to a myriad of other women’s human 
rights that are essential to their ability to thrive as 
economic actors across the lifecycle. This includes, but 
is not limited to, living lives free of violence and ex-
ploitation, achieving the highest possible standard of 
health and well-being, enjoying full legal and human 
rights such as access to registration, identification, 
and citizenship documents, benefitting from formal 
and informal education, and equal protection of and 
access to land and property rights, access to funda-
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mental labor rights, policies to address dispropor-
tionate care burdens, and business and management 
skills and leadership opportunities. 
(5) Discriminatory legal and regulatory systems 
and banking practices are hurdles to women’s access 
to capital and assets, including land, machinery, pro-
duction facilities, technology, and human resources. 
Often, these barriers are connected to a woman’s mar-
ital status, which can determine whether she is able 
to inherit land or own property in her name. These 
constraints contribute to women frequently running 
smaller businesses, with fewer employees and lower 
asset values. 
(6) Savings groups primarily comprised of 
women are recognized as a vital entry point, espe-
cially for poor and very poor women, to formal finan-
cial services and there is a high demand for such 
groups to protect and grow their savings with formal 
financial institutions. Evidence shows that, once 
linked to a bank, the average savings per member in-
creases between 40 to 100 percent and the average 
profit per member doubles. Key to these outcomes is 
investing in financial literacy, business leadership 
training, and mentorship. 
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(7) United States support for microenterprise 
and microfinance development programs, which seek 
to reduce poverty in low-income countries by giving 
small loans to small-scale entrepreneurs without col-
lateral, have been a useful mechanism to help families 
weather economic shocks, but many microcredit bor-
rowers largely remain in poverty. The vast majority 
of microcredit borrowers are women who would like to 
move up the economic ladder but are held back by 
binding constraints that create a ‘‘missing middle’’– 
large numbers of microenterprises, a handful of large 
firms or conglomerates, and very few SMEs in be-
tween, which are critical to driving economic growth 
in developing countries. 
(8) According to the World Bank, SMEs create 
4 out of 5 new positions in emerging markets but 
about half of formal SMEs don’t have access to formal 
credit. The financing gap is even larger when micro 
and informal enterprises are taken into account. 
Overall, approximately 70 percent of all micro, small 
and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) in emerging 
markets lack access to credit. 
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