Africa’s women entrepreneurs have a bright future

The future can only get brighter for women business owners across Africa, says WEConnect International regional director for Africa, Margaret Mutheu.

“Women are already great contributors to Africa’s economies – they own a third of the businesses registered on the continent,” she notes.

WEConnect International is a global network that connects women-owned businesses to vetted buyers around the world,? helping to drive money into the hands of women business owners by enabling them to compete in the global marketplace.? It launched in Kenya in March 2022, and Mutheu took over as regional director.

“We have a network of more than 3 000 women business owners, and that presents a great opportunity,” she says.

According to the 2019 World Bank report Profiting from Parity, there are more women who are business owners on the continent than anywhere else, and women make up 58% of Africa’s self-employed population. However, most often this is because women are forced into trying any means to make ends meet.

Mutheu has always championed women’s progress in business. Before taking on the regional directorship of WEConnect International, Mutheu founded the Africa chapter of 1Million Startups, a global platform that aims to support entrepreneurs who are “dedicated to solving real-life problems” and achieving the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SDGs are a set of 17 goals aimed at improving people’s lives while boosting business profits and ensuring the sustainability of the planet.

1Million Startups’ Africa chapter runs an investment readiness accelerator,? ELEVATE, which works to improve an entrepreneur’s talent and the scalability of their business so that the attractiveness of their enterprise to investors is boosted.

Mutheu also started the Women Biz360 hub, an online-only centre that develops women’s entrepreneurial leadership through improving women business owners’ confidence, financial literacy and technological? know-how.

“I started these organisations because I realised that women face very specific challenges in business that need to be addressed differently. Also, with Women Biz360, it was clear to me that there was a lot of technical training for women, but that they needed something more,” says Mutheu.

The top three business challenges women face, says Mutheu, are a lack of capability, a lack of access to capital and a lack of financial literacy. The “something more” she refers to is to be found in soft skills.?

Mutheu realised women needed coaching in the kind of self-awareness that leads to a reduction in “imposter syndrome” – the belief that your success is not earned and that your capabilities don’t match up to your position. The organisation also works to improve women business owners’ financial acumen, because Mutheu believes that women too often focus on other aspects of their business and “run away from the numbers”.

This impulse to help her sisters in business is also what pushed Mutheu to join WEConnect International in December 2021, and to take up the Africa regional directorship.

“WEConnect is such a huge opportunity for women business owners. Africa is one big market opportunity for everyone,” she says.

This is a mantra often heard in global business circles – that Africa is the next big business opportunity. The continent, home to 1.2-billion people, has a young population and much of its economic potential is untapped, meaning there is strong scope for growth. That contrasts strongly with the developed world’s saturated economy, and its ageing population, which has raised concerns of economic shrinkage in coming years.

The potential across Africa excites Mutheu, as does the promise inherent in the African Continental Free Trade Area agreement, which seeks to create a continent-wide community in which cross-border trade tariffs are eventually eliminated. Already there are 43 parties to the agreement.

Women, says Mutheu, need to take advantage of this –?and other – trade agreements, and that means they need the confidence and the financial and technical acumen required. That is what the organisations she has founded, and WEConnect International, are for.

“It can be quite lonely to be an entrepreneur. You must network, and you must not shy away from putting yourself out there and taking up the opportunities that come along. You are never 100% ready for anything.

“WEConnect International is an opportunity for women to gain visibility in the market. It gives you access to the top decision-makers in the global market.”

Just as importantly, says Mutheu, WEConnect International is a place where women who are entrepreneurs can be reminded that “someone has taken note of what you have done [in business]”.

Register your business with #WEConnect International: https://rb.gy/j3tqlq