Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, in which countries and for how many projects her Department provides microloans to local communities or small businesses.

DFID does not track microloans separately from other financial inclusion programmes. DFID’s total investment in financial inclusion programmes is more than £426 million as of July 2016. The portfolio has a wide geographic spread with a focus on Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. DFID focuses on ways to make business easier for micro and small enterprises to support growth and jobs, as opposed to a specific focus on microlending.

One of the best examples of our work with small businesses is DFID’s anchor investment of £75m in the Global Small and Medium Size Enterprise (SME) Finance Initiative established in 2012 along with other investors. As of June 2016, the programme had contributed to nearly £3.5bn of commercial loans supporting nearly 66,000 SMEs in 26 countries, including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, Mozambique and Bangladesh. The programme has a particular focus on increasing finance to women-headed SMEs.