This document provides a general background on gender issues and status in El Salvador. It is important to note, that the proposed Project targets formal small and medium businesses and as such will only have gender co-benefits related to the productivity impacts of these projects (such as those related to employment). As the beneficiary development bank (BANDESAL) has a policy to promote credit to women led projects (currently its portfolio of lending has about 40 – 42 % of women SME led projects), the project is expected in the long term to also continue this trend. Given the lack of statistics on SMEs in general and on SME women implications in particular, this annex touches on a broad spectrum of the status of women in El Salvadorian Society that are beyond the Project Scope.