About the Cherie Blair Foundation Enterprise Development Programme
The potential of women entrepreneurs remains largely untapped in developing and emerging markets, with many lacking access to the financial services, skills and opportunities they need to become successful business owners. In developing countries, women own only around 30% of small businesses and as little as 17% of medium enterprises. Women are also three times more likely to operate within the informal economy.
How Does Entrepreneurship Empower Women?
Entrepreneurship is a powerful tool for women’s empowerment. The Cherie Blair Foundation for Women works with women entrepreneurs in developing and emerging economies to grow sustainable businesses.
To mark Women’s Entrepreneurship Day, the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women hosted a twitter conversation to explore the link between women’s entrepreneurship and women’s empowerment.
The Foundation asked the following question: how does entrepreneurship empower women as individuals, in the household and in the community? These are their six key takeaways from the #EntrepreneurshipEmpowers conversation:
1. There was a strong feeling from respondents that women entrepreneurs challenge restrictive gender norms and act as powerful role models, inspiring and empowering other women, specifically women entrepreneurs, female employees and young girls.
2. Job creation was frequently cited as a powerful example of the impact of women’s entrepreneurship, reflecting research which shows that women entrepreneurs generate more jobs and hire more workers than their male counterparts.
3. Many people reflected on the link between women’s entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship, suggesting that women entrepreneurs are more likely to develop business models which combine sustainability, growth and development.
4. Participants shared fewer comments and fewer pieces of data on the link between women’s entrepreneurship and the household, which may suggest a need for more research on this complex issue.
5. Women’s entrepreneurship and women’s economic empowerment enables greater resilience in societies and economies. Specific examples of this included research on how women’s economic empowerment supports more inclusive economic growth, and bolsters livelihoods in refugee communities and in the aftermath of environmental disasters.
6. There was a strong emphasis on the importance of creating policy environments and legal frameworks that support women’s entrepreneurship and women’s economic empowerment more broadly.
Read the tweets on the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women blog.
Follow the Foundation - @CherieBlairFndn
About the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women
The Cherie Blair Foundation for Women provides women entrepreneurs in developing and emerging markets with the skills, technology, networks and access to financial services that they need to become successful small and growing business owners, so that they can contribute to their economies and have a stronger voice in their societies. Working in partnership with local and international non-profit organisations, the private and public sector, the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women develops projects with sustainable solutions to the challenges women entrepreneurs face through three programmes: Enterprise Development, Mentoring and Mobile Technology.
http://www.cherieblairfoundation.org/programmes/enterprise/
Извор: WUNRN – 07.12.2016
