The Government of Indonesia launched the National Financial Inclusion Strategy for Women (NWFIS) in 
June 2020. The NWFIS has seven priority areas including comprehensive support for women-owned micro 
small and medium sized-enterprises  (MSMEs).  The NWFIS is supported by a five-year action plan, 
which complements the National Medium Term Development Plan 2020-2024, and also complements the 
“five presidential  directions” by the Ministry of Women Empowerment and Child Protection, in 
particular the direction to  increase the amount of women entrepreneurs. 

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a disproportionately negative impact on women-owned businesses across 
several key sectors in Indonesia. There is growing evidence of the need for more data and evidence 
to inform post-pandemic recovery policies that can support women-owned businesses overcome the 
pandemic’s challenges.


The Asian Development Bank has been supporting the Government of Indonesia with its objectives to 
strengthen women’s financial inclusion and women’s entrepreneurship through the Competitiveness, 
Industrial Modernization, and Trade Acceleration Program (CITA) and Promoting Innovative Financial 
Inclusion Program (PIFIP). To accelerate financial inclusion in Eastern Indonesia, OJK has also 
launched the Eastern Indonesia Financial Innovation Lab (EIFIL) which focuses in 5 provinces (West 
Nusa Tenggara, East Nusa Tenggara, Maluku, North Maluku and South Sulawesi Province). OJK provides 
technical assistance to the regional development banks (Bank Pembangunan Daerah/BPD) in these 
provinces to increase financial inclusion, specifically for the MSMEs sector, with priority for 
women-owned businesses and youth entrepreneurs in the agriculture and tourism industries. The CITA 
Program will support the development of a  new integrated national plan for MSMEs on upscaling and 
modernizing priority sectors; including food and metal processing, and ensuring equitable 
participation by, and responsiveness to  women-owned MSMEs.  

As part of these programs, ADB will generate new evidence and data on women-owned business through 
a gender-sensitive value chain study. ADB is seeking to engage a firm to produce  gender-sensitive 
value chain study of at least two sectors, that will be defined together with the firm and relevant 
government agencies, as well as the Women’s Financial Inclusion Network (Jejaring Keuangan Inklusif 
Perempuan or J-KIP)  based on select criteria, such as percentage of women-owned businesses in the 
sector, or growth potential of the sector. The study should aim to understand the role and specific 
gendered challenges of women-owned businesses in different parts of the value chain, as well as 
analyse and provide data on female employees in the value chain. 

The study also is expected to identify  international good practices regarding the participation 
of  women-owned businesses in the global value  chain. The  gender sensitive value chain study  
will inform the implementation of the NWFIS, the EIFIL and CITA initiative, especially on how to 
support the women-owned businesses in  three strategic sectors expand their business by 
participating in the global value chain. The objective will be to identify policy entry points for 
supporting women’s financial inclusion and women-owned MSMEs.