Africa's Female Entrepreneurs are Leading the Globe
August 8, 2022 – Did you know that African women are twice as likely to start a business as women elsewhere in the world? Africa has the highest female entrepreneurship rate in the world, with 27% of the adult female population engaged in early-stage entrepreneurial activity.
Like the rest of the world, gender equality and gender equity in the business world remains a challenge across Africa.
At the current pace, The World Economic Forum’s Gender Gap report says it will take an entire century – 100 years!!! – for the world to achieve gender parity.
Regionally, this translates into 54 years for Western Europe, 95 years for Sub Saharan Africa and 140 years for the Middle East and North Africa.
The good news is that Africa’s female entrepreneurs are leading the way!
Africa’s female entrepreneurship rate is the highest in the world, with 27% of the adult female population engaged in early-stage entrepreneurial activity. African women are twice as likely to start a business as women elsewhere in the world. Women in Africa make up 58% of the continent’s self-employed population, but they are more likely than men to choose entrepreneurship because they lack better opportunities, not always because they have a burning passion or the right skills.
When you consider that Africa is a world leader in female business ownership, you can see that unlocking women’s potential can make a huge contribution, not only to your business but also to the overall growth and prosperity of the continent. Working with women entrepreneurs is simply smart economics.
In my work mentoring female entrepreneurs and small- and medium-enterprise business owners across Africa over the past thirty years, I found three things help them grow their businesses:
They need a mindset shift, which is achieved by teaching them and sometimes giving them permission to take the initiative and a calculated risk, as well as to step out of their comfort zones.
They need practical training on topics like creating a business plan, setting goals, creating work-life harmony, the basics of budgeting and bookkeeping, and the various ways to access capital. Crucially, they need to see this training applied in real-life scenarios. Bring women into your office and into meetings, even if just for a day, to give them insight into how you do business. It was amazing how just one day of shadowing me opened many women’s eyes to the possibilities, grew their network, and inspired them. Just one day of seeing how I conducted myself in a meeting, seeing how I work with my schedule, and being a silent observer as I interacted with staff gave them the idea that, “I can do this too,” or “Oh, this is normal.”
They need to hear stories. It is vital for these women to hear about others’ journeys and the lessons learned. They need to hear success stories, particularly about how other women access finance. They also need to hear from women in traditionally male-dominated fields, such as transport, solar energy, and tech.
To learn more about women in business and women entrepreneurs, please pick up a copy of “Africa: Open for Business”, my international best seller that takes the guesswork out of doing business in Africa and shares why now is the time to invest in what I like to call AfriCAN – the can-do continent. It’s as simple as ABC: Appetite to get on the ground and learn first-hand about the countries, cultures, risks, business environment and customers; Bandwidth to build relationships, find local leaders and understand the best market entry strategy; and Capital invested not just in your business, but people and infrastructure as well.
Africa: Open for Business is available on all Amazon country sites in print, audio and e-book formats. Quick Links to Amazon US site https://amzn.to/3zy8a9p and Amazon UK site https://amzn.to/33JObIY
Photo: Business women in Dakar, Senegal by Dr. Deanne De Vries