Women entrepreneurs face multiple challenges to accessing finance, with an estimated $42 billion financing gap for African women across business value chains. According to the United Nations Global Entrepreneurship Monitor study, around 56% of women entrepreneurs in Sub-Saharan Africa cite either unprofitability or lack of finances as a reason for closing down their businesses.
EWEA determined some of the biggest obstacles women face in business include a lack of an enabling environment for women businesses to grow their skills, thrive, and rise to management positions. Nevertheless, in terms of potential, they are as efficient and growth-oriented as male-owned businesses.
Over the years, many promising entrepreneurship support programs such as incubators, accelerators, university-based innovation hubs, maker spaces, technology parks, and co-working spaces across the continent have opened their doors to help support more women-led businesses.
However, these enablers are often limited in the support they are able to provide WSMEs due to lack of funding and network access, as well as lack of well-positioned services.
According to Malado Kaba, Director of Gender, Women, and Civil Society at the African Development Bank, “We know that aside from access to finance, women entrepreneurs need skills and a supportive business ecosystem. The Affirmative Finance Action for Women in Africa, a flagship initiative of the African Development Bank, is pleased to work with Seedstars, which was selected as one of ten organizations in our inaugural cohort of Women’s Entrepreneurship Enablers. The project’s grants are expected to support 88 organizations reaching 540 WSMEs with access to 6,000 mentoring hours and 90 investors through this program across 11 countries.”
Through a collaboration with the African Development Bank’s AFAWA initiative and GrowthAfrica, the EWEA program is set to provide long-term and scalable capacity building, access to mentorship, access to funding, and access to visibility for both WSMEs and community enablers in Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Malawi, Morocco, Mozambique, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, Rwanda, and Zambia.
Seadstars is a Swiss-based private company with a mission to impact people’s lives in emerging markets through technology and entrepreneurship. The group’s activities cover over 90 emerging ecosystems through a variety of initiatives such as the FTxSDG Challenge, previously known as the Seedstars World Competition, which is the largest entrepreneurship competition in emerging markets; Seedstars Programs that are designed to support entrepreneurs in varying stages of growth via training, education, mentoring, and access to resources.
Seadstars 01, a talent incubator providing digital skills and startup-based immersive education for the next generation of changemakers; Seedspace, physical coworking spaces and hubs located in 15 countries; and Seedstars International, a global venture capital fund for seed-stage startups.
