Enterpreneurship | |
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Monday, January 27,
2020 / 4:10 PM / Nifemi Taiyese for WebTV / Header Image Credit: WebTV
According to Diarietou Gaye, the Director of
Strategic Operations, World Bank Africa Office, the continent is the only
region in the world where more women than men choose to become entrepreneurs, a
phenomenon that is not the subject of adequate discussion.
Diarietou Gaye believes that expanding the
opportunities for female entrepreneurs through policies that foster gender
equality would have a tremendous impact on Africa's growth. Simple and
inexpensive solutions have been proven effective and need adoption on a wider
scale.
To further underscore the importance of this
assessment, WebTV engaged Dr. Natasha Katuta Mwila of the Department of
Strategic Management in De Montfort University, Leicester, the United Kingdom,
on Deepening Women Entrepreneurship in Africa, to drive growth and development.
She identified the first
step as understanding the plight of women, stressing that the challenges women
face in entrepreneurship are different and vary according to the sector they
operate and also the span of countries the business covers. There is a need to
understand their challenges which are the starting point.
According to her, the
individual challenges female entrepreneurs face could be socio-cultural or
institutional.
The second issue she
raised was the fact that Africa has a lot of
success stories from female entrepreneurs, and such achievements need sharing
for others to be able to network and those trying to be successful tap into
those networks.
Creating networks for women and navigating these
networks are some of the aspects her work covers, she stated.
She said her research and studies had explored the
power of networks in connecting female entrepreneurs to opportunities from
where they reside to the rest of the continent.
Dr. Mwila also cited two of her case studies, the
first female business originally set up in Zimbabwe but is now exporting goods
across the continent and the globe. The second case according to her, is
originally from Nigeria but operating in South Africa. The big picture for the
female entrepreneur involved here is her determination to drive cross border
trade, scaling her business to the regional level.
She emphasised the need for policies by governments on
the continent geared towards encouraging and mobilizing women entrepreneurs.
Countries like Rwanda and Uganda are leading in the
drive to create an enabling environment for women-owned businesses and ensuring
that they have access to the required capital to scale their operations.
"In different countries, when there is a change of
government, there is a bit of reluctance to revisit the policies or to continue
with existing policies from the past. If a policy that works, then it should be
kept going regardless of what government of the day exists then that would help
boost the business climate and create an enabling environment for female
businesses to thrive," Dr. Mwila said.
She also made a strong case for women to participate
actively in the political space in Africa so that they can be empowered to
influence policies that will deepen female entrepreneurship in Africa.
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