Dear Mr Malige,
Dear guests,
It is a great pleasure to welcome you today to the Bank of Albania on this important occasion for our financial system and, the advancement of women’s entrepreneurship in Albania.
Today Albania officially joins the global WE Finance Code – the Code for Financing Women Entrepreneurs. We regard this initiative as an important commitment to advancing financial inclusion and fostering a more supportive financial ecosystem, enabling us to better understand and address the needs of women entrepreneurs in accessing finance. Above all, we see this initiative as an opportunity to mobilise the entire financial and institutional ecosystem around a shared objective.
Access to finance is not simply about the opportunity to obtain a loan. It is about an economy’s ability to channel capital towards ideas, investments, and enterprises with the potential to create value. In this regard, improving women entrepreneurs’ access to finance is not only an objective of financial inclusion. It is also an investment in the productive potential of our economy and in the development of a financial system that can respond effectively to the needs and aspirations of all economic actors.
The Bank of Albania, in fulfilling its mandate and responsibilities, remains firmly committed to contributing to the development of a modern, sustainable, and inclusive financial system. In recent years, we have made significant efforts to modernise financial and payment system infrastructure, expand access to financial services, strengthen financial education, and improve the quality, availability, and use of financial data.
In this context, the WE Finance Code complements and reinforces these efforts by placing women entrepreneurs’ access to finance within a more structured and evidence-based framework, supported by data and strengthened through collaboration among the key stakeholders of the financial ecosystem. For the Bank of Albania, this represents an opportunity to contribute, within our mandate, to establishing a new form of market intelligence in this segment of the economy.
One of the key results of the work conducted so far is the establishment of a foundation for a national mirror of financing to micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, disaggregated by gender, as well as the development of a dashboard for the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Code. This is a crucial step towards creating a clearer and more comparable picture of the financing of women entrepreneurs in Albania.
For us, the importance of this approach lies precisely here: in having a reliable foundation to better understand the reality, identify the gaps and measure progress over time. And in this context, data has an importance that goes beyond statistics: it becomes the foundation for dialogue and informed decision-making.
For public institutions, this provides a stronger foundation for the development of evidence-based policies. For financial institutions, it offers a clearer understanding of the size, characteristics, and needs of this segment. And, above all, it creates the opportunity to measure progress through data, and not only through perceptions.
This dimension is particularly important for the financial sector, as reliable information is essential for financial institutions when making decisions on new products, processes, and markets. The better we understand the performance and characteristics of women entrepreneurs, the easier it becomes to move from a segment defined by limited information to a well-understood market with identifiable potential.
The Women Entrepreneur Finance Code places this effort on three interlinked pillars. Institutional Leadership, Action, and Data. For me, these are not three separate elements, but rather three links in the same chain.
Institutional leadership means having the institutional willingness to address this issue as a priority. Data provides the evidence we need to understand where the gaps are and what the real needs are. Action means translating that commitment and evidence into concrete changes in the market.
This is precisely where the success of the Code will be measured. Not by the number of documents, we sign today, nor by the number of meetings we hold tomorrow, but by the change we see in the way women entrepreneurs access and use finance.
Achieving this requires partnership, as no single institution can address this challenge on its own. Public institutions have a role in shaping policies and collecting data; the Bank of Albania in statistics, the financial system, financial inclusion, and coordination; financial institutions in developing products and processes; business organisations, and those representing women, in articulating their real needs and experiences; while international partners bring expertise, experience, and technical support.
I would like to thank all the stakeholders who engaged from the diagnostic phase and who have chosen to be part of this national coalition. I would also like to extend a special thank you to the EBRD, the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative, and Frankfurt School for their support and cooperation throughout this process.
I would also like to address, in particular, the banks and microfinance institutions that are part of this initiative. The Women Entrepreneurs Finance Code should be considered as an opportunity to better recognise a segment of the market, to make more effective use of data, and to develop products and services that respond more effectively to the needs of women entrepreneurs.
For the Bank of Albania, this is a commitment that naturally aligns with our responsibility to contribute to a financial system that is sustainable, modern, and inclusive. We will continue to contribute through what lies at the core of our role: reliable data, high-quality statistics, modern financial infrastructure, financial inclusion, and structured dialogue with the financial sector. But real change will come from the collective action of the entire ecosystem.
Dear guests,
Today, Albania joins a global effort with a clear ambition: to create greater opportunities for women entrepreneurs to access finance. But this event is not the destination. On the contrary, it marks the beginning of a new stage of work and cooperation. From this moment forward, our shared challenge is to move from commitment to action, from data to decision-making, and from decision-making to results.
The success of the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Code in Albania will not be determined by the analytical dashboard we publish, nor by the number of institutions that make commitments. It will be determined by the real opportunities we create for women entrepreneurs.
Success will be when a woman with a good business idea has access to the information, products, and financing she needs to turn that idea into a sustainable and competitive business.
This is the standard against which we should measure our commitment, and this is the outcome towards which we should direct our collective efforts.
The Bank of Albania stands ready to play its part and to work together with all stakeholders to turn this ambition into concrete and lasting results for the Albanian economy.
Thank You!