Case studies of women entrepreneurs across Africa who have overcome legal and regulatory obstacles to create new business opportunities

Doing Business: Women in Africa is the first in a series of regional reports designed to showcase successful women entrepreneurs and explore how they overcame obstacles to business creation and growth. The seven women profiled here represent countries from across the continent. Their generosity in sharing their stories, their successes and the obstacles they faced pave the way for more opportunities for other women entrepreneurs.

Doing Business – Opportunities for Women The Doing Business project has joined forces with theWorld Bank Group Gender Action Plan to launch a two-year research program on reforms that improve business opportunities for women. The project is identifying legal and regulatory barriers facing businesswomen, compiling a data base of relevant laws for each country, and determining reforms that are likely to have the biggest benefits for women.

Doing Business is a series of annual reports investigating the regulations that enhance business activity and those that constrain it. Doing Business presents quantitative indicators on business regulations and the protection of property rights that can be compared across 178 economies—from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe—and over time.

Regulations affecting 10 stages of a business’s life are measured: starting a business, dealing with licenses, employing workers, registering property, getting credit, protecting investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts and closing a business.

TheWorld Bank Group Gender Action Plan is a four year initiative to promote women’s economic empowerment and gender equality as smart economics. Launched by the World Bank at a conference hosted by German Chancellor Angela Merkel in February 2007, the Gender Action Plan commits the World Bank Group to intensify gender equality work in the economic sectors over four years, in partnership with client countries, donors, the private sector, and other development agencies.

To date some $36 million has been pledged for implementation. Vital Voices Global Partnership is a leading non-governmental organization (NGO) that identifies, trains, and empowers emerging women leaders and social entrepreneurs around the globe, enabling them to create a better world for us all.We provide these women with the capacity, connections and credibility they need to unlock their leadership potential.

We enable women to become change agents in their governments, advocates to remove legal barriers, and supporters of democracy and the rule of law.

“Gender and women’s empowerment is at the core of what we need to do in the field of development. Gender equality is also smart economics. Research demonstrates that progress in the area of women’s economic empowerment is still far, far too slow.

Whether it is the question of employment, opportunity, pay, or access to finance, there is a tremendous amount of work to do to level the playing field for women.”

Robert B. Zoellick, President,
World Bank Group

Download Doing Business: Women in Africa

PDF format, 4.25MB, 62Pages.

Messages from Project Partners:

We rarely take time to celebrate success in developing countries. This is one such opportunity.

In 2007, the Doing Business team started celebrating the success of top reformers, by launching the annual Reformers’ Club. Awards are given to the top-10 reformers in governments around the world. This publication is a twin, of sorts: it recognizes top performance by entrepreneurs.We start with Africa, the region that can most benefit from more and growing businesses. The women entrepreneurs cited here show that success is possible even in difficult conditions. And point to what reforms are needed to make it easier for them and others.

This book is the first product of a joint research project with the Gender Action Plan that will change the face of gender economics in developing countries.

Simeon Djankov
Chief Economist, Indicators Group
Financial and Private Sector Vice Presidency,World Bank Group

I am delighted theWorld Bank Group Gender Action Plan and the Doing Business project have joined forces to reliably document and deepen the research and analytical underpinnings of how the investment climate impacts women. Case studies like these provide us with insights into how women entrepreneurs themselves experience legal and regulatory obstacles and the means they find to overcome them; they also highlight the importance of supportive government policies.

Leveling the playing field for women and providing an enabling business environment for both men and women makes sound economic sense for women, their families and for economies overall.

Our thanks to Vital Voices Global Partnership for their role in supporting this initiative with women’s leadership training and advocacy for reform. Many of the businesswomen you will read about in this publication are now actively engaged in advocacy efforts to support gender-informed legal and regulatory reforms in their own countries.

Mayra Buvinic, Sector Director,
Gender and Development, World Bank Group

Vital Voices Global Partnership is proud to partner with theWorld Bank Group Gender Action Plan to develop “Leveling the Playing Field forWomen’s Social and Economic Progress.” This program is part of our AfricanWomen’s Leadership Initiative made possible through the generous support of the ExxonMobil Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, IF Hummingbird Foundation, Standard Chartered Bank, and the U.S. Department of State among others.

This partnership will train women to become more effective advocates for the removal of legislative barriers impeding women’s economic progress. To support their advocacy, an innovative database of gender restrictive laws is being compiled.

The case studies appearing in this publication tell the stories of African women entrepreneurs who have overcome such legal barriers to achieve economic success. They are indeed the Vital Voices of our time.

Melanne Verveer, Co-Founder & Chair, Board of Directors
Vital Voices Global Partnership

Comments (0)

Show/Hide comments

Name

Email

Website

Title

Comment

smaller | bigger

Add Comment