Female entrepreneurship: let’s stop the small business syndrome and create a gender-responsive environment.

Kicking off the Sahara Sparks season and Global Entrepreneurship Week in Tanzania with a theme that focuses on women entrepreneurs has been quite a great start for me being a champion of impact and inclusion.

To bring you to the context in which I want to go into, I need to give you the context that exists. While Africa is the only region in the world where more women than men choose to become entrepreneurs, over 50% of the entrepreneurial circle in the continent is ran by women, who run micro and small businesses.

Now in the context of economics we all understand the importance of MSMEs in any economy but the question now being raised is why is it when we speak of women, we directly link them to small businesses? And maybe the answer is as obvious as that more than 70% of the WOEs don’t scale or even pass the early stage or just as obvious as that maybe the standards in which we have placed WOEs.

Many stakeholders have and are trying to solve the puzzle of being able to support more WOEs cross to the other side of the valley, and there are some of the challenges that have been clearly stated, from lack of capital to lack of information to make right strategic decisions to socio-cultural environment.

Getting back to today’s event that was organized by Tanzania Startup Association in partnership with Global Entrepreneurship Network Tanzania during the Sahara Sparks season, a lot of important key points have been raised by a number of stakeholders from Mrs. Angelina Ngalula, CEO of Tanzania Private Sector Foundation to Mercy Kitomary the CEO of Nelwas Galeto and other stakeholders including entrepreneurs themselves have focused beyond “helping the small business and empowering women”.

Some of the key discussions that have been raised are:

The choice of sector

It’s observed that female entrepreneurs tend to confine themselves to the traditionally female sectors or sectors in which their main clients are women, not because of a lack of skills or access to capital, but rather a lack of information (the opportunities available in the sector, the compliance needed, the know-how-of-corporate-politics, etc) and social factors.

This has really challenged me and the rest of the participants of the discussion today to think further and come up with a way of encouraging more women to tap into most “men-dominated” sectors.

Conditions governing business growth from the policy point of view

Some of the discussions raised were on how most women entrepreneurs lack support and information on compliance hence the consequences of that are massive to their businesses.

But also lack of understanding on how to navigate these challenges and lack of information of where to go, at what stage of your business, and when you are looking for what.

Conditions governing access to market

Scalling a business is not a small job, one would have had to manipulate a lot of buttons within their business value chain, one must have had clear systems and structures within the business and one must know how to play the corporate-politics, well as one stakeholder put it “ manage their stakeholders”.

So it’s clear that their more that needs to be done in preparing relevant training that will have a significant impact.

Conditions governing access to capital

This is not something new, we hear this every day from across the globe.

What came out really clear in the why and the how-to navigate through that. The need to have technical-know-how training for women entrepreneurs on finance management, compliance, and how to access different avenues of funds.

“Small Business syndrome limits the growth of most women has to go, we should stop associating women with small businesses” Khalila Mbowe, CEO, Unleashed Africa

Deep conversation around the perspective in which we encourage and support women in building their business was what I can call a healing session for many entrepreneurs in the room. It turned a validation season for women in business that dreaming big and going big is what they should do and that navigating life and business is possible.

“It’s important for women to also learn the art of networking and capitalizing on the contacts they build” Cikay Richards, CEO, European Business Group Tanzania

Some of the deep conversations around personality and how one as a female leader or businesswomen should handle “stakeholders” and create valuable networks.

Well, it’s good to see such a powerful development of efforts to support and invest in women entrepreneurs and women-led businesses in the country. Looking forward to seeing more, working with more partners and stakeholders.

Sahara Sparks 2020 is coming bigger and I can imagine what 2021 means for SheFound and it’s mission. Super exciting.