Business Unusual during Covid-19

The Resilience of Africa’s Women Entrepreneurs

Only in Africa do more women than men choose to become entrepreneurs. These women-led enterprises emerge and persist despite daunting challenges: struggles to secure resources for their businesses and access to markets. Given the role of women entrepreneurs as employers and as engines of economic growth in cities across the continent, it is important to understand their strengths as well as the challenges they confront, to learn how best to support them as business leaders during and post-COVID-19. But efforts to foster resilience among women-led SMEs in Africa face a widely recognized problem—unreliable data. Accessible data capable of supporting effective responses are in short supply. Researchers from the Litmus team at NYU Marron are partnering with Lionesses of Africa to provide reliable, timely data and insights into women entrepreneurs and their businesses and give Africa’s women entrepreneurs a voice in shaping resources targeted to them.

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