Yasmin Belo-Osagie and Afua Osei are two female entrepreneurs that are taking on gender inequality in Africa by empowering women through their platform called She Leads Africa, which provides support and guidance to young women entrepreneurs.
According to CNN, Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest rate of female entrepreneurship across the world at 27 percent. “But most of these businesses tend to have no employees and low growth expectations: they are, for the most part, one-woman enterprises oriented to consumers,” CNN reports.
Belo-Osagie and Osei met at an event in Lagos, Nigeria where they bonded over their frustrations with gender inequality in Africa and the lack of attention given to female entrepreneurs in the global discourse surrounding African women and the difficulties they face, according to an article in the website, ONE.
From there, the two went on to create an organization that focuses on empowering women who want to build their own companies with multiple employees.
According to a new McKinsey & Company report entitled, The power of parity: How advancing women’s equality can add $12 trillion to global growth, if every country matched the progress toward gender parity of its fastest-improving neighbor, global GDP could increase by up to $12 trillion in 2025.
The report went on to show the enormous economic potential of full gender parity. “We consider a ‘full potential’ scenario in which women participate in the economy identically to men and find that it would add up to $28 trillion, or 26 percent, to annual global GDP by 2025 compared with a business-as-usual scenario,” the report states. “This impact is roughly equivalent to the size of the combined Chinese and US economies today.”
The authors identified six types of intervention that would be necessary to bridge the gender gap. They include: financial incentives and support; technology and infrastructure; the creation of economic opportunity; capability building; advocacy and shaping attitudes; and laws, policies, and regulations.
“Tackling gender inequality will require change within businesses as well as new coalitions,” the report concludes. “The private sector will need to play a more active role in concert with governments and nongovernmental organizations, and companies could benefit both directly and indirectly by taking action.”
She Leads Africa isn’t waiting for the male-dominated world to take action on gender inequality in Africa. “With their flagship event—the SLA Entrepreneur Showcase, where female entrepreneurs pitch their businesses to business leaders to win a $10,000 prize and gain media attention and valuable mentorship—the organization has begun to take equity positions in the participating companies that they feel are promising,” says the ONE article.
“Startup competitions or accelerators in Africa never attract more than 30% female participation,” reports CNN. “While this is in line with Europe and the U.S., Belo-Osagie and Osei believe that Africa could do better and become a pioneer in how to develop diverse and inclusive ecosystems.”
She Leads Africa attracted the attention of 266 female entrepreneurs that had never applied for a pitch or competition before. With options like this gender inequality in Africa could be on the decline, which would clearly be of benefit to all.
Sources: One, McKinsey, CNN
Photo: Flickr
Read about gender inequality in India.