The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and UN Women have launched a new financing initiative aimed at helping Afghan women entrepreneurs start and grow their businesses.
The Afghanistan Women’s Fund for Resilient Enterprises (AWFRE) comes with an initial joint investment of $1.7 million and is expected to support around 1,500 women entrepreneurs over the next year. The programme is also expected to indirectly benefit more than 14,000 people through stronger businesses, increased household incomes and wider economic activity.
The initiative combines financing with practical business support. Women entrepreneurs will have access to Sharia-compliant, collateral-free financing, alongside financial and digital literacy training, mentoring, business planning and assistance with accessing markets.
The focus on financing addresses one of the major barriers facing women-led businesses in Afghanistan. UNDP says fewer than 7% of women in Afghanistan have a bank account or use mobile money services, leaving many women entrepreneurs dependent on personal savings, loans from family and friends, or the sale of personal assets to operate and expand their businesses.
At the same time, women’s entrepreneurship has continued to develop despite the difficult operating environment.
More than 10,000 Afghan women now hold business licences, according to UNDP, around ten times the number recorded five years ago. The Afghanistan Chamber of Commerce estimates that another 120,000 women are trading without licences.
For many women, business activity has become an important source of household income. UNDP research involving more than 3,100 women-led businesses found that access to finance remains a significant constraint, with only 5% of surveyed businesses reporting loans from formal banks.
Combining Finance With Business Support
AWFRE is designed to go beyond providing capital.
The programme will combine financing with training and advisory support intended to help women improve their financial and digital skills, develop business plans, access markets and strengthen their businesses.
Turhan Saleh, UNDP Resident Representative in Afghanistan, said the challenge facing women entrepreneurs was not a lack of enterprise, but limited access to finance, skills and networks.
UN Women Special Representative Susan Ferguson said expanding women’s access to finance was important to enabling women-led businesses to grow.
The approach reflects a wider focus by UN agencies in Afghanistan on financial inclusion and private-sector development.
UNDP’s broader Access to Finance initiative is already supporting women-owned enterprises through credit guarantees, Islamic finance products, digital financial inclusion and market access programmes. Its 2026 initiative has a wider $6.1 million investment and includes a dedicated Women’s Enterprise Fund and gender-responsive lending mechanisms.
A Larger Funding Goal
The initial $1.7 million investment is intended to be the starting point rather than the full scale of the programme.
UNDP and UN Women are seeking to mobilise an additional $10 million. If secured, the additional funding would allow another 10,000 women entrepreneurs to access financing and business support, with an estimated indirect benefit to around 70,000 people.
The initiative comes as Afghan women continue to face significant barriers to formal employment, finance and market access. UNDP’s research has found that women-owned businesses rely heavily on family and informal sources of finance, while access to formal banking remains limited.
For the women already running businesses, however, entrepreneurship remains an important route to generating income and maintaining economic activity.
AWFRE is therefore positioning access to finance as one part of a broader support system, bringing together capital, training, mentoring and market access.
The initiative gives 1,500 women entrepreneurs access to that support during its first year, while the proposed additional funding could substantially expand its reach.
