EBRD Loans Morocco € 20 Million to Support Women-Led MSMEs

The project aims to promote women’s entrepreneurship and participation in business by improving their access to finance and advice through dedicated credit lines and tailored technical assistance programmes, the EBRD pointed out in a press release, adding that the project will support access to finance for women-led MSMEs in the regions affected by the 8th September 2023 earthquake.

The loan will be accompanied by a technical cooperation programme to provide technical support to BMCI through staff training, internal capacity-building and skill development to more accurately understand and serve the financial needs of women-led MSMEs, funded by the European Union, the same source noted.

It will also be accompanied by capacity-building and advisory services delivered directly to women-led MSMEs to support their know-how and entrepreneurial skills development, funded by the EU, EBRD noted, adding that Non-Technical Cooperation grant will be provided to sub-borrowers in the form of gender-intelligent financial incentive payments for eligible investments in digitalization for women-led MSMEs, funded by the EU and a first loss risk cover funded by the EBRD’s Shareholder Special Fund for the portion targeting the regions affected by the 8th September earthquake (SSF).

This investment represents the fifth partnership between BMCI and EBRD. It will support BMCI in consolidating its business model, digital transformation and practices to better collaborate with women-led MSMEs and meet their financial needs.

As part of the EBRD’s response to the Al Haouz earthquake, the Bank’s Shareholder Special Fund (SSF) will finance first loss risk dedicated to women-run MSMEs located in the affected regions. This is one of the first operations of an intervention package worth 250 million euros, running from 2023 to 2025, announced last month in order to rebuild Morocco’s economy in the earthquake-affected regions.

This operation will allow the Bank to provide a rapid response to the earthquake consequences while remaining fully relevant in the main objective of promoting female entrepreneurship in Morocco, EBRD explained.

Morocco is a founding member of EBRD and became a beneficiary of the Bank’s resources in 2012. To date, EBRD has invested 4.3 billion euros in the country through 96 projects.

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