UN Fund Opens Financing Pathways for Afghan Women Entrepreneurs

By: Women Entrepreneurs Review Team | Friday, 25 September 2026

A new collaborative partnership between UN Women and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is geared towards encouraging financial inclusion and entrepreneurship among Afghan women entrepreneurs through enhanced access to finance and business development services.

Afghanistan Women’s Fund for Resilient Enterprises (AWFRE) will assist female entrepreneurs in overcoming problems hindering access to finance, developing necessary business skills, and market opportunities.

Activities carried out within the framework of this new project, USD 1.7 million will be invested in supporting up to 1,500 women entrepreneurs during one year. The new programme can produce additional economic effects as well because more than 14,000 people will benefit from improved business performance.

Key Highlights:

• UN Women and UNDP advance financing soluitons for Afghan women entrepreneurs
• AWFRE invests $1.7 million to support 1,500 women entrepreneurs in one year
• Initiative aims to strengthen businesses, jobs and household incomes.

The programme will provide Sharia-compliant finance to women in addition to providing different business development services including financial literacy, digital literacy, entrepreneurship, mentoring, business plan, and market access services. By providing finance together with business knowledge, women entrepreneurs will be able to improve their business performance and develop ways of managing and growing their finances.

For the wider dissemination of this initiative, UNDP and UN Women intend to raise an additional $10 million. This will lead to about 10,000 women entrepreneurs accessing funding and business development services. The initiative will also provide indirect economic gains as it will benefit 70,000 other people through business expansion, employment and household income.

Susan Ferguson, UN Women Special Representative highlighted limited access to finance remains a critical facilitator of the entrepreneurial success of women. The initiative will empower women entrepreneurs with required capital and investment capabilities, thus enhancing the operational capacity, customer base and economic opportunities for their firms.

Susan further commented that the women of Afghanistan have continued displaying their entrepreneurship skills even after encountering several difficulties. Hence, the initiative will help in creating viable businesses as well as employment opportunities.

“Afghan women are finding ways to build businesses, despite the many obstacles they face. Expanding access to finance can help women entrepreneurs turn their ideas and skills into stronger businesses, more jobs and greater economic security for their families and communities,” Susan added.

At the same time, over 10,000 women in Afghanistan currently own business licenses, ten times more than what was five years ago with about 120,000 more unlicensed traders, as per estimates by the Afghanistan Chamber of Commerce.

This program will take care of the financial challenges faced by Afghan women as most of them do not have access to banking and digital financial services. Only 7% of Afghan women have access to a bank account or mobile money accounts, and thus they find it difficult to get business funding from traditional financial sources.

Afghan women entrepreneurs resort to self-finance, informal borrowing from relatives or friends, or the sale of personal possessions to raise funds for their businesses. Lack of proper channels of financing may hamper the flow of cash, working capital, investment capital, and business expansion, especially those wanting to go beyond the small-business stage.