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Successes and challenges for women starting their own businesses.
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Women with disabilities often encounter ‘double discrimination’ in Turkey – faced with unemployment or lower-grade jobs on account of their gender and their disability. Government work quotas are not solving the issue, so Turkey’s women are taking matters into their own hands.
In Part 1 of a two-part report on the informal banks that help women secure financial stability, we look at a savings group in Kenya that grants independence to the women who join it.
In part 2 of our report on the low-income food sellers of Nairobi, we examine the threats facing the women who provide this vital link in the food-security chain – and what the future may hold for them.
Kenyan women operate low-cost food kiosks that fulfill an essential function: providing hot food to people too poor to buy fuel to cook their own meals. But they often struggle to make ends meet, not least because some of their clients are unable to pay.
Women in Chhattisgarh state have branched out on their own as farmers rearing Kadaknath chickens, which are in great demand for their high-protein meat. A local enterprise scheme is boosting the women’s independence and has saved the birds from the edge of extinction.
The Women’s Funding Network embraces a ground-up philosophy that empowers women to work together in planning and raising money for community projects. Key to its success, says CEO Cynthia Nimmo, is the fact that WFN takes a long-term view of project impacts.
Many Russian women find it difficult to get back into work after having children, but coworking centers with free childcare – the brainchild of P.R. specialist Olesya Kashaeva – are helping many in Moscow. This year Kashaeva is opening centers in 35 Russian cities.
With limited access to public services, Israel’s Bedouin are recognized as the country’s most disadvantaged community. Today, a growing band of Bedouin businesswomen are showing that women can attain financial independence in this male-dominated society.
Nigeria’s federal budget includes support for women farmers, but many still feel left behind. So, for the first time, Ondo state is giving its smallholder women farmers their own line in its annual budget.
Starting in school, women in Benin are steered away from careers in tech. But now a new generation of women tech developers is emerging, serving as mentors for others and showing that coding isn’t just for men.
In rural Kenya, the Waata people were displaced by the creation of a national park. But solar-dried pineapples have offered a lifeline to women who had struggled to make a living from farming in the past.
Often doubted by friends and rejected for bank loans, women entrepreneurs in Kenya are challenging stereotypes and finding success in the male-dominated business of import/export.
The unofficial street traders of Dar Es Salaam used to endure insecure work conditions and harassment from militias. Now a government program is allowing them to make their businesses official for the first time.
Breaking into the tech industry is never easy for women. It’s even harder in Gaza, under the shadow of conflict. Entrepreneur Ghada Ibrahim shares her experience of trying to build a new life for herself and her family through learning to code.
With no way of supporting their children, many women are trapped in abusive relationships they can’t afford to leave. But a group of Kenyan women who have all been targets of gender-based violence are moving forward with the help of their peanut butter business.
In a region of Nigeria famed for its crude oil, and the conflict that often goes with it, women are embracing palm oil production instead of fighting discrimination in the fossil fuel industry.
When a group of schoolgirls from northeast Nigeria met trafficked women who were struggling to survive after returning home, they knew they had to do something. Now they raise funds to help those women launch their own businesses and rebuild their lives.
Sexual assault survivors are heavily stigmatized in the Democratic Republic of Congo. But by starting up their own small businesses, some women have been able to reintegrate into their communities, and feed their families.
Reports of the exploitation and abuse of Nepalese women working for families abroad have become distressingly familiar. But for many, migrant work is their only chance to make a living and can allow them to learn skills that let them flourish back home.
A new bank in Zimbabwe catering specifically to women – particularly those in rural areas – will offer loans, advice and skills training to help women get the funding and access to markets that traditional banks often deny them.
Not satisfied with cleaning fish or cooking for fishermen like other women working around Lake Victoria, two female friends saved up their money, flipped traditional gender roles and now run their own successful fishing business.
With gender equality a key feature of G7 negotiations, we asked four leading experts in the field what they would like to see come out of the negotiations in Canada this weekend.
India’s startup and venture capital sectors are still relatively young, but already dominated by men. Meet the women overcoming old-fashioned attitudes to make their names in investing and helping other women turn their ideas into businesses.
The fund will focus on women-led companies, helping them access money that banks are unwilling to lend them. And by increasing women’s participation in the business world, the hope is to raise women’s decision-making powers across all sectors.
Ouen Chomroeun started building and selling toilets when she was 17. Now she and the women she employs sell and install them in villages across Cambodia, making money as they raise awareness of the importance of hygiene.
Women tend to be better represented in universities and professional careers in Mongolia, but they have been left out of the burgeoning tech scene. Now a group of entrepreneurs is working to change that.
Balqees Bani Hani is the first woman to run a garage in Jordan. Her mechanic shop in Irbid only repairs other women’s cars and now she wants to expand and train more women to help her in her shop.
To mark World Intellectual Property Day, we meet a group of women basket weavers in Kenya’s Taita Taveta County who turned a pastime into a livelihood by building a brand and protecting their work.
The beauty practices of Nigeria’s north are finding a new home in the country’s big cities, and providing an economic alternative for women from the conflict-torn region.
After decades in the shadows, the field of gender lens investing is coming to the fore in financial circles – connecting women entrepreneurs around the world with the capital they need to succeed.
After years working in a Phnom Penh garment factory, where she made little money and had to ask permission to go to the bathroom, Hab Saly returned home to start her own sewing workshop and help other women escape the lonely, grinding life of a factory worker.
Women in the Philippines have often struggled to get loans from banks to start their social enterprises. But impact investors around the world are stepping up to fill that gap.
Without property or land to use as collateral, women trying to succeed in Kenya’s renewable energy industry often struggle to get funding from traditional financial institutions. Many are turning to crowdfunding as a faster and fairer way to raise capital.
Navigating the traffic-clogged streets of Dhaka can be a nightmare for many professional women. Now a new breed of ride-sharing app has sprung up to help women commuters get to work on time.
The World Bank has found that the majority of the world’s countries restrict women economically in some way, with 104 countries preventing women from doing the same work as men.
A new report from the Center for Global Development has found that women have much greater interest in opening savings accounts than men do, and that providing women entrepreneurs with mobile banking tools can significantly enhance their profits.
Over the last decade, Rwanda’s government has launched a series of initiatives to help increase women’s economic participation. But many woman entrepreneurs say policies and regulations still make it difficult for them to launch and grow their own businesses.
Tired of relying on their husbands, who are often away for months, a group of Maasai women began making and selling beauty products made from aloe. With the profits, they now contribute to their household incomes and help support community members in need.
Mithu Pandit should be a trailblazer, but the first woman to break into Kolkata’s all-male rickshaw trade does not feel like one. She’s just trying to feed her family.
Ayesha Ahmad Lecturer, Medical Ethics and Law at St George's University of London
Many international donors want to invest in Afghan women’s economic potential. But the country needs to transform its entire gender infrastructure to really change women’s lives, writes Ayesha Ahmad.
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