New York City announced on Wednesday that it is teaming up with Goldman Sachs and a few other companies to make it easier for female entrepreneurs to tap affordable lines of credit to grow their businesses.

In a release, the city announced a new program called WE Credit that will help 250 women entrepreneurs access lines of credit, which will average $50,000 at below-market interest rates. The city hopes WE Credit will help close the startup gender gap, and become a model for others to follow.

The program is part of a public-private partnership with Goldman Sachs' 10,000 Small Businesses program, which will provide $5 million to finance lines of credit. Separately, Squarespace, an all-in-one website building platform, and and the New York City Economic Development Corporation will invest $1 million for a loan loss reserve to cover potential defaults, while credit solutions provider Fundation will offer the platform for the women to access and manage the lines of credit.

The annual percentage rates will be up to 12%, well below current market rates.

"It is widely known that in the decade since the financial crisis, the economic recovery has not benefitted all communities and all types of business owners and employees equally,” Margaret Anadu, managing director and head of Goldman’s Urban Investment Group, told Yahoo Finance in an interview.

“Women, even though they are starting small businesses at a significant rate, fundamentally don't get the same amount of capital that their male counterparts do," she added.

According to research by the city, 70% of New York-based women entrepreneurs cited access to capital as their primary challenge. Additionally, half of the women entrepreneurs surveyed by NYC said they only needed less than $10,000 when starting their company.

And because they aren't getting access to funding, many of those women end up funding most of their business on their own — often relying on personal credit cards and payday lenders that come with prohibitively high interest rates.

In an interview with Yahoo Finance, former Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen said the new initiative was necessary, in light of the fact that “the private sector hasn't been able to move the needle.

Glen, herself a former Goldman Sachs executive, added that “when something is not right about a way the market is functioning, it is absolutely appropriate for the government to intervene.”

WE Credit bills itself as a first of its kind product that provides working capital at below-market rates, in order to support women who wouldn't have access to the money otherwise.