Women's empowerment through social entrepreneurship and impact investing in Myanmar

This chapter explores the role of social entrepreneurship and impact investing on women's empowerment in Myanmar. The main results can be summarized as follows. First, in the environment of Myanmar, social enterprises play an important role for the empowerment of women, helping achieve economic independence, overcome poverty through asset building, and improve the well-being of families and communities. Second, access to finance is a crucial factor limiting the scale, with the majority of social enterprises relying on grants and being excluded from the financial system. Third, impact investments in Myanmar play a decisive role in disrupting the current way of financing development, as well as in creating a new generation of female social entrepreneurs.