Ambitious Women Are Unleashing Their Potential by Starting Businesses

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Foreign correspondent Tanzeel Akhtar talks to successful female entrepreneurs from Nigeria and South Africa to find out about their achievements and discover what motivates them.

Female entrepreneurship in sub-Saharan Africa is rising rapidly, with a number of ambitious women defying the odds, going solo and unleashing their potential.

There are also a number of global initiatives supporting and propelling female-run businesses on the continent but the fact remains that there are still challenges women need to overcome.

For example:

In sub-Saharan Africa, at least 40% of the labour force is female, according to the Pew Research Centre.  However, 74% of women’s non-agricultural employment is informal, in contrast with 61% for men.

Read more about the wonderful stories of women who dare to dream.  Be inspired.

The Missing Silver Bullet for Women Entrepreneurs

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Even where women are starting businesses at relatively high rates, their profits and growth are constrained relative to their male counterparts.  Take Asia and the Pacific.  They stand to gain 70 percent in per capita income within roughly two generations by eliminating gender disparities in employment, including in the area of entrepreneurship. Increasing women’s entrepreneurship is good for national banks and citizens’ wallets alike.

In Cambodia, for example, less than 1 percent of businesses with more than 10 employees are owned by women, and women’s entrepreneurship rates in South Asia are among the lowest in the world, with less than one in 10 SMEs owned by women. 

What explains this persistent gender gap in entrepreneurship across the region, how can it be overcome, and does it matter?

Read more about the missing silver bullet for women entrepreneurs.