Women in Enterprise Panel Highlights Uzbekistan’s Push for Female Entrepreneurship
The “Women in Enterprise” panel at the fifth Tashkent International Investment Forum (TIIF) 2026 put female entrepreneurship and gender-inclusive growth at the center of Uzbekistan’s investment agenda. Held on June 16, the session, formally titled Women in Enterprise: The Economic Case for Gender-Inclusive Growth, examined how greater female participation in business could support Uzbekistan’s wider economic reforms. The panel took place as Uzbekistan has improved its position in the World Bank’s Women, Business and the Law index by 43 places, ranking it 48th out of 190 economies. Speaking on the panel, Deputy Prime Minister Zulaykho Makhkamova, who also chairs Uzbekistan’s Committee on Family and Women, highlighted how rapidly women’s participation has expanded beyond traditionally female-dominated professions. “Women’s participation in the digital economy is approaching 40%,” Makhkamova said. “Thousands of women are participating in new programs related to artificial intelligence and the One Million Coders initiative.” Despite these advances, access to capital, market opportunities, training, and leadership positions continues to lag behind. According to Kanokpan Lao-Araya, country director of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in Uzbekistan, women account for roughly 40% of entrepreneurs in the country – about 2.1 million people in 2024, according to UNDP figures. However, their access to financing remains disproportionately low. “Credit going to women is only 14%,” Lao-Araya said. “Access to finance is the end goal. In order to reach that, we have to focus on the ecosystem.” The ADB has been working with the Uzbek government on SME development strategies that include gender components, while also supporting local banks through dedicated credit lines aimed at increasing lending to women entrepreneurs. The institution has established targets requiring participating banks to allocate at least 30% of borrowers to women-led businesses. “Instead of only focusing on participation, we need to look at the next stage of growth and scale,” Lao-Araya said. That argument was echoed by Momina Aijazuddin, regional industry director at the International Finance Corporation (IFC), who presented figures illustrating the scale of the challenge globally. According to IFC data, only $19 out of every $100 invested in emerging-market portfolios reaches women. Women-owned MSMEs in emerging and developing markets face an estimated $1.9 trillion financing gap. “If women started and scaled businesses at the same rate as men, it would increase the global economy by almost $6 trillion,” Aijazuddin said. “I come from Pakistan, where a man is five times more likely to have a bank account than a woman." [caption id="attachment_50652" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] Image: TCA[/caption] Aijazuddin argued that international financial institutions are increasingly treating women’s entrepreneurship as an investment opportunity rather than a charitable cause. IFC’s Banking on Women program has already mobilized nearly $13 billion aimed at women entrepreneurs and women-led small and medium-sized enterprises. The organization is also experimenting with innovative financial instruments designed to attract larger pools of capital. Among the examples she cited was IFC’s $100 million investment in Akbank’s digitally issued gender bond, with proceeds directed toward women-owned SMEs and mortgage loans for women in Turkey. “What we’re trying to do...
