Women, Entrepreneurship and the Opportunity to Promote Development and Business (original) (raw)

2013, Brookings Institution

This paper is part of the 2013 Brookings Blum Roundtable Policy Briefs, which details the role of the private sector in the post-2015 development agenda. Female entrepreneurship represents a vast untapped source of innovation, job creation and economic growth in the developing world. The barriers to women’s entrepreneurship are various: Women face greater obstacles in accessing credit, training, networks and information, as well as legal and policy constraints. The World Economic Forum shows little progress in narrowing the economic gap between women and men. Yet not all is lost! Innovative initiatives to promote women’s entrepreneurship—driven by both the private and public sectors—are on the rise. This brief provides an overview of the global landscape of women’s entrepreneurship. It aims to demystify the challenges that women face in accessing finance, and it highlights some of the typical challenges regarding capacity- building programs targeted at women entrepreneurs. Above all, this brief focuses on potential solutions and enablers by drawing on practical experiences from the public and private sectors in both emerging and developed markets. It concludes that innovative partnerships, particularly when private and public sector entities are involved, are beginning to make a dent, with the potential for large-scale impact. Those who embrace women’s entrepreneurship as an opportunity are likely to reap the rewards in new market opportunities and higher development impact

Ensuring Access to Finance for Women Entrepreneurs

T20 Policy Brief, 2023

Relatively few financial institutions consider women-led businesses an attractive and profitable target segment, while others often struggle to understand the needs of women-led businesses and thus miss potentially profitable opportunities to develop and deliver women customer-centric services. Impediments to more inclusive financial products, services and support include: the paucity of gender-disaggregated data; incorrect or misaligned incentives for policy implementation; absence of a gendered approach to designing products, services and delivery mechanisms; and gaps in regulatory or legal frameworks that inhibit women entrepreneurs’ access to finance. This Policy Brief argues for an integrated approach to ensuring that service providers understand the value of this market segment and provide women entrepreneurs appropriate products and services that fit their specific needs. It suggests using a gender lens and following a process of stakeholder consultation to ensure that the policies adopted are evidence-based and contextualised appropriately, drawing on an integrated and multilevel view of the ecosystem within which they operate. It also draws on evidence from various countries to support policy recommendations designed to promote more equitable access to finance. Think20 (T20) is an official Engagement Group of the G20. It serves as an “idea bank” for the G20 by bringing together think tanks and high-level experts to discuss policy issues relevant to the G20. T20 recommendations are synthesised into policy briefs and presented to G20 working groups, ministerial meetings, and leaders’ summit to help the G20 deliver concrete policy measures.

WOMEN’S ENTREPRENEURSHIP: GOING BEYOND THE GENDER-NEUTRAL APPROACH

There is increasing recognition that female entrepreneurs are the new engines for inclusive and sustainable growth (GEM 2012). A variety of stakeholders have indicated that they are the ‘rising stars of the economies’, the ‘untapped source of economic growth and development’, ‘the way forward’, and the ‘new women’s movement’ (Vossenberg 2013). By 2020, it is estimated that 870 million women will enter the economic mainstream for the first time, which may affect GDP growth rates and productivity, increasing it by as much as 34% and 25% respectively in some countries (World Bank 2011). It is thus becoming ever more certain that women’s entrepreneurship is, and will continue to be, a formidable force of socio-economic development (Minniti and Naudé 2010).

Women Entrepreneurship - Govt. & Institutional Support.doc

In globalized arena, the hidden entrepreneurial potentials of women have gradually been changing with the growing sensitivity to the role and economic status in society. Today, Indian women are at par with men. They have come a long way from being known as just ‘homemakers’ to ‘career-oriented’ women. Modern day women are all set to break the stereotype and are focused on carving a niche for themselves in the business world. Women entrepreneurship has been recognised as an important source of economic growth. Women entrepreneurs create new jobs for themselves and others and also provide society with different solutions to management, organisation and business problems. However, they still represent a minority of all entrepreneurs. Women entrepreneurs often face gender-based barriers to starting and growing their businesses, like discriminatory property, matrimonial and inheritance laws and/or cultural practices; lack of access to formal finance mechanisms; limited mobility and access to information and networks, etc. The Indian Government has come up with various subsidy schemes for such budding women entrepreneurs. Women’s entrepreneurship can make a particularly strong contribution to the economic well-being of the family and communities, poverty reduction and women’s empowerment, thus contributing to the Millennium Development Goals. Thus, governments across the world as well as various developmental organizations are actively undertaking promotion of women entrepreneurs through various schemes, incentives and promotional measures. The present study is taken up to examine the various Policies and Schemes initiated by the Government and other Institutions to encourage Women Entrepreneurs and to examine the global best practices for Women-Owned Enterprise Financing.

Employment Women Through Entrepreneurship Development and Education in Developing Countries

JWEE, 2018

Women entrepreneurship is today one of the major factors contributing to a country’s prosperity and to the global market in general. However, females still own and manage significantly fewer businesses than men. Especially, women in developing countries face disadvantages and discrimination. Compared to their male counterparts, women in developing countries have a lower level of education and skill training. Another important challenge for female entrepreneurs in developing countries is the issue of safety and protection of women, especially those operating in the informal economy. The most female entrepreneurs in developing economies are motivated to start their businesses out of necessity, reflecting lack of employment alternatives or dissatisfaction with existing employment. The overall nature and extent to which female entrepreneurship can develop in developing economies is greatly influenced by project to strengthening them. In line with this, the aim of our research was to exp...

Worldwide role of women entrepreneurs in economic development

Asia Pacific Journal of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, 2020

Purpose The contribution of women entrepreneurs is still invisible and needs to be properly investigated. The purpose of this paper is to investigate this relationship by measuring women entrepreneurship and economic development at global level. Design/methodology/approach Secondary data has been retrieved from Female Entrepreneurship Index Report 2015, Human Development Report 2015 and KOF Index of Globalization 2015. Cross-sectional data is used from 69 countries of the world. Multiple regression is applied to estimate the data. Findings The results explained the significant impact of women entrepreneurship on the economies of the world. It was observed that women participation in entrepreneurial activities not only supports to their family income but also plays a significant role in economic development and social well-being of the society. Research limitations/implications There is no information about total output of women entrepreneurs in terms of new enterprises setups and es...

UNFOLDING POTENTIAL OF WOMEN ENTREPRENEURSHIP FOR ENHANCING ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT AND EFFICIENCY

Women entrepreneurs play a significant role in creating new job opportunities for themselves and for the society as a whole. They also contribute towards increasing the per-capita income of the country and as a result the economy as a whole can enjoy a better standard of living and the future becomes brighter for the next generation. The developing economies agree that entrepreneurship has always being a greater booster for the development. In fact, the women gain a better understanding of managing family and business simultaneously. This paper has made an attempt to explore the role of women in the global struggle for a stable economy. They have the better ability to take risks and business decisions. Women's strength in emotional intelligence can be a competitive advantage in proper utilization of human potentialities. This paper has highlighted that the governments should implement policies to foster entrepreneurship and reap the benefits of their participation in the economy. A woman to become entrepreneur self-confidence plays a vital role which comes thorough planning and it reduces uncertainty and the level of risk. It also comes from expertise. Self-confidence gives the women the ability to listen. These days with the advancement of the technology any skills can be learned quickly or there is a way out to hire someone who has strengths that the entrepreneur lacks. The paper has concluded that the most important strategy to become a successful entrepreneur is to be aware of strengths and to build on them. This paper has highlighted as how it is in interest of enhancing economic empowerment and efficiency.

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