Oesterreichische Entwicklungsbank AG (OeEB), the Development Bank of Austria, is a committed advocate for gender-lens investing (GLI), actively working to bridge the global financing gap for women-owned businesses. Through its partnership with Women’s World Banking (WWB), OeEB supported Sanadcom—a Jordanian non-bank financial institution—to strengthen its capacity to serve women-led micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs), a critical economic segment often referred to as the “missing middle.”
In 2025, Kore Global conducted an independent ex-post evaluation of the technical assistance (TA) package OeEB delivered to Sanadcom. The evaluation aimed to assess the project’s relevance and effectiveness in institutionalizing gender-smart practices, improving access to finance for women entrepreneurs, and ensuring the sustainability of these interventions within the Jordanian context.
Over the course of the assignment, we:
- Reconstructed a Theory of Change (ToC) to clarify the causal pathways between internal institutional strengthening—such as policy reform and staff training—and external outcomes for women entrepreneurs.
- Conducted extensive primary research in Jordan, including key informant interviews with Sanadcom leadership, credit officers, ecosystem actors, and women clients to capture diverse perspectives on the project’s impact.
- Assessed institutional shifts resulting from the TA, specifically analyzing how gender-integrated credit policies and “soft skills” training contributed to improved portfolio quality and a more inclusive organizational culture.
- Developed a replicable “Blueprint” and model Terms of Reference (ToR) to help OeEB apply the successful elements of the Sanadcom experience to future financial institution partners.
- Provided strategic recommendations focused on closing sex-disaggregated data gaps, formalizing corporate gender strategies, and leveraging digitization to sustain gender outcomes.
This evaluation forms part of OeEB’s “Gender Lighthouse Projects,” designed to generate evidence on the sustainability and replicability of gender-focused interventions. By demonstrating how targeted technical assistance can drive development impact beyond capital deployment, the findings contribute to transparency and collective learning within the broader field of gender-lens investing.