Women Entrepreneurs Are a Powerful Driver of Job Creation and Economic Growth

Women entrepreneurs are a powerful yet underused driver of job creation and economic growth. Removing barriers to their success could significantly expand employment, especially for women.

To unlock this potential, growth-oriented women-led small and medium enterprises (WSMEs) – the “missing middle” – must receive stronger support. These firms face major financing gaps, being too large for micro loans but often viewed as too small or risky for banks and investors.

Read more about what the World Bank has set as a target for reaching more women and women-led businesses by 2030.

How Women-led Rural Enterprises Grow in India

To identify mechanisms that would help India-based women-led enterprises grow to their full potential, the World Bank carried out a study in six Indian states. 

The study showed that more than 85 percent of women-owned, rural, non-farm enterprises are concentrated in five sub-sectors: retail trade, manufacturing of apparel, food products, food and beverage services and the handloom sector.

Learn more about targeted policies for broader support to India for promoting rural women’s entrepreneurship.

Calling All Women Entrepreneurs: Nominate Yourself or Someone Else!

The Doing Business project of the World Bank is conducting a two-year research effort to identify legal and regulatory barriers facing businesswomen in 178 economies. The program will provide analysis on reforms that benefit women in business.

As a part of this effort, team members will be preparing profiles of women entrepreneurs describing reasons for their success, as well as highlighting some of the main legal, regulatory, and practical obstacles they faced in expanding their business. These case studies will help identify strategies to alleviate such obstacles, as well as communication approaches to promote the benefits of reform.

The Doing Business team will select from each region amongst the nominations, contact them, and prepare a profile of the individual. These profiles will be published by Doing Business.

A candidate for nomination is a woman entrepreneur who:

-- Is the founder/owner of the business
-- Is active in her community
-- Has an experience that can offer lessons that can inform reform efforts

When submitting your nomination, kindly provide as much of the following information as available to you:

• Full name of Nominee
• Name and type of business
• Business address, phone number, and e-mail
• Month and year business was started
• A brief biography of the nominated entrepreneur
• A brief description of the business
• A brief summary of the obstacles overcome, discoveries made, and outcomes

Please forward your nominations by no later than (extended) January 25, 2008 to Sushmitha Narsiah (refer to following link).

More information can be found here.

Thank you very much in advance for your support and good luck!