Enhancing Women Entrepreneurship in Africa to offer scalable solutions
African women entrepreneurs have an estimated $42 billion financing deficit across all business value chains, which presents a number of obstacles to their ability to obtain capital. According to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor research by the United Nations, almost 56% of women company owners in Sub-Saharan Africa mention either low profitability or a lack of funding as the reason for shuttering their enterprises.
According to EWEA, one of the major challenges women in business confront is the absence of an environment that fosters skill development, commercial success, and management advancement. However, in terms of potential, they are just as effective and growth-oriented as companies run by men.
Incubators, accelerators, university-based innovation hubs, maker spaces, technology parks, and co-working spaces, among many others, have opened their doors over the years to encourage more women-owned enterprises across the continent.
However, these enablers frequently have a limited capacity to assist WSMEs due to a lack of money, network connectivity, and well-positioned services.
Malado Kaba, Director of Gender, Women, and Civil Society at the African Development Bank, stated that in addition to having access to capital, female entrepreneurs require skill development and a favorable business environment. The African Development Bank’s flagship initiative, Affirmative Finance Action for Women in Africa, is happy to collaborate with Seedstars, which was chosen as one of the ten organizations for our first cohort of Women’s Entrepreneurship Enablers. The project’s funding are anticipated to help 88 organizations reach 540 WSMEs in 11 countries with 6,000 hours of mentorship and 90 investors.
The EWEA program will offer long-term and scalable capacity building, access to mentorship, access to funding, and access to visibility for both WSMEs and community enablers in Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Malawi, Morocco, Mozambique, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, Rwanda, and Zambia. This will be done through collaboration with the AFAWA initiative of the African Development Bank and GrowthAfrica.
Using technology and entrepreneurship, Seadstars, a private corporation with headquarters in Switzerland, aims to improve people’s lives in developing nations. Through a number of initiatives, including the FTxSDG Challenge, formerly known as the Seedstars World Competition, which is the largest entrepreneurship competition in emerging markets, and Seedstars Programs, which are intended to support entrepreneurs in various stages of growth through training, education, mentoring, and access to resources, the group’s activities span over 90 emerging ecosystems.
For the next generation of changemakers, Seedstars 01 offers digital skills training and startup-based immersive education. Seedspace offers physical coworking spaces and hubs in 15 different locations. Seedstars International is a global venture capital fund for seed stage firms.
