African Business Women Series: Why So Important
African Business Women Series: Why So Important
So this post is actually being written not only to argue that it is desirable for the African continent to do better at utilizing its business women for development; but also to try and demystify the perception of African women as being non-assertive in business or life in general.
**Time out** I would like to take a brief recess and take you into some of the experiences that have actually helped to mold my views of Africa. I can recall as a young man barely in high school hearing my fathers report about his first trip to Sub-Saharan Africa-Senegal. He ran down the experience in very careful detail and actually accompanied his synopsis with lot’s of pictures for me to see. Outside of the images of South Africa that I had seen as a child this was my first glimpse at Sub-Saharan Africa. Now because my father has always been very passionate about Africa the pictures that he showed me were no big surprise. What I mean is that the fact that these pictures conveyed through beaches, highways, skyscrapers, and etc. a sense of being in a thriving African town was not really new to me. By then I had already been exposed to my father’s formal unpaid lectures at local high schools in the predominately black sections of Atlanta, GA. His theme and topic was… guess? Africa..the theme of his lectures at the high schools was letting these young children of African descent know that their history did not start on the banks of Plymouth Rock, but that it actually began in various parts of Africa with some very relevant civilizations that existed from ancient times up until pre-colonial times. The lectures started in Ancient Kemet and usually they progressed into Meroe, Ashanti, Mali, Zimbabwe, and etc. the culminating point of the lecture was the family tree…Our family tree on his Mom’s side of the family which he was able trace back to Cape Coast, Ghana. The premise being that if children can be optimistic about their past, then they could be optimistic about their future. Anyhow, one way that that story relates here is in perceptions….After the lectures the reaction from the students was always the same-kids rushed up to share some conversations with my Dad and were amazed to find out so much more about Africa than they would have imagined. Those lectures were my introduction into seeing how one can help reverse the lop sided views that some people have about Africa. But over the years I have found that perhaps the most polarizing views about Africa pertain to the women of Africa. I can recall some of the questions and comments that I received from different folks around the time that my wife and I were still dating. People assumed that because she was from Kenya and Kenya is in Africa that she must not be very self-assured or secure about herself. When I told them that just as we have here in the States I am sure that one could probably find some women in Africa that are more passive. But for some reason I’d have never personally come across any who fit that mold, including my wife, it was like we were speaking different languages to each other. Of course, gradually overtime they began to see that the ideas that they had turned out just to be generalizations…And though this is just another one of my side notes, I think it’s useful to the conversation. It is about Wairimu, (whom I am very happily married to by the way) by the time we met, she had already been a two-store manager for a local petroleum company in Atlanta, GA- this was long before she had a degree and when she was just 22 years old. The entrepreneurial aspirations that she shared with me at the time were to engage in health management facilities in Kenya after she learns the system here. I mention my wife’s example for two reasons 1) because I think that Wairimu’s spirit and determination reminds me a great deal of what the business women that I observed in the parts of Africa that I visited and 2) because I am so proud of her.
So now for the remainder of the post…Why it is so important for Africa to start drawing more upon women owned enterprises as a way to grow economically is what we will now look at. To sum it up Africa needs both more women entrepreneurs and more women entrepreneurs to make the transition from micro enterprise to small business or medium sized businesses and large businesses. This is because although Africa’s business women are already doing a lot to help their respective economies grow, in relation to their population numbers and ratios, Africa’s economies are still under utilizing business women. Additionally, in most rapid growth economies the high digit growth often comes from the small business sector. It should be noted that we are distinguishing small businesses from micro-businesses. The number of employees is one of the easiest ways to determine whether a business fits into the micro-business category (6-10 employees) or the small business category(11-50 employees). An observation that I have made and heard by others is that although there are some very strong and competitive indigenous businesses and industries within Africa, there seem to be a disproportionately larger number of micro-businesses than their larger cousins the small businesses. I believe this is more pronounced in Sub-Saharan Africa than North Africa because of the population trends. Sub-Saharan Africa has more women than men the aggregate total that I have heard about is that for every 100 men in SSA there are 102 women. In some parts of SSA this is much more acute than in other parts, but if women have more constraints and make up a larger part of the population than men, then that could explain why there is such a gap in Africa between informal1 to 10 person enterprises in Africa versus the formal 11 to 50 person enterprises. One more side note here is that large businesses in Africa are fairly abundant, it is the small businesses that usually lead to economic and employment growth since large firms are sometimes just as prone to lay off workers as they are to hiring them. This concept has allowed economists and policy makers to isolate the small business sector as the missing link to prosperity in many of Africa’s economies. Also something that I almost failed to mention is that the majority of Africa’s micro enterprise owners are women, so that has allowed economists to go a step beyond just saying Africa needs. This is one of the reasons that many of the social investment and micro-credit organizations operating in Africa target women for business development initiatives. Below is an excerpt which reinforces some of what was just said:
“…Gerry Finnegan, the director of the ILO Program on Women Entrepreneurs told Voice of America reporter Ruby Ofori, “What has happened is that …the larger businesses are not creating any new jobs. The public sector and state-owned enterprises have been cutting back on the number of workers for the past two years. Now people are thrown back on their own reserves, and many of them are starting up in businesses on their own.” Mr. Finnegan says around 100,000 women in Kenya and 200,000 women in Ethiopia run small businesses that have the potential to grow and employ more people if they are able to obtain the right support and funding. These businesses range from trading and services to handicrafts, tailoring, small-scale manufacturing and food processing…”
Source: VOA News
Prior to actually writing this post, my hope was that it would end up containing lot’s of data and statistics. Mainly what I found on this topic was very, very outdated. So instead what we will do is include a resources list at the end of this post. This is for anyone out there who just has to see some numbers and also for anyone out there who would cringe at the sight of seeing 10 year old statistics showing up in this post. Win-win situation, right Anyhow, I hope that this post was both enjoyable and informative to you. Stay tuned as we head into news covering Africa’s business women…and I hope to see you armed with lots of comments for this and the next couple of posts on the topic!
African Business Women Series Why So Important - To learn more about this author, visit Benin Mwangi's Website.
Like this article? Share it with your friends
I think that a good place to begin this discussion is to address the perception of Africa’s women from those who are outside and looking inside. Before we go deeper about perceptions of African women, let me say that term “African women” can be a bit of a misnomer since the continent of Africa is so ethically and socially diverse. I’ll bet if you took 1000 people from different parts of Africa and asked them what does it mean to be African, you’d probably get at least 1001 totally different answers. So it would follow that Africa’s women would also fall into many different categories culturally speaking. But the reason that I have chosen to use the broad category “African” women is that although we who have been there know that the people are far from homogeneous, many who have not been there do not know this. And every now and then what others think of us can be almost as important to our identity as what we think about ourselves.
So this post is actually being written not only to argue that it is desirable for the African continent to do better at utilizing its business women for development; but also to try and demystify the perception of African women as being non-assertive in business or life in general.
**Time out** I would like to take a brief recess and take you into some of the experiences that have actually helped to mold my views of Africa. I can recall as a young man barely in high school hearing my fathers report about his first trip to Sub-Saharan Africa-Senegal. He ran down the experience in very careful detail and actually accompanied his synopsis with lot’s of pictures for me to see. Outside of the images of South Africa that I had seen as a child this was my first glimpse at Sub-Saharan Africa. Now because my father has always been very passionate about Africa the pictures that he showed me were no big surprise. What I mean is that the fact that these pictures conveyed through beaches, highways, skyscrapers, and etc. a sense of being in a thriving African town was not really new to me. By then I had already been exposed to my father’s formal unpaid lectures at local high schools in the predominately black sections of Atlanta, GA. His theme and topic was… guess? Africa..the theme of his lectures at the high schools was letting these young children of African descent know that their history did not start on the banks of Plymouth Rock, but that it actually began in various parts of Africa with some very relevant civilizations that existed from ancient times up until pre-colonial times. The lectures started in Ancient Kemet and usually they progressed into Meroe, Ashanti, Mali, Zimbabwe, and etc. the culminating point of the lecture was the family tree…Our family tree on his Mom’s side of the family which he was able trace back to Cape Coast, Ghana. The premise being that if children can be optimistic about their past, then they could be optimistic about their future. Anyhow, one way that that story relates here is in perceptions….After the lectures the reaction from the students was always the same-kids rushed up to share some conversations with my Dad and were amazed to find out so much more about Africa than they would have imagined. Those lectures were my introduction into seeing how one can help reverse the lop sided views that some people have about Africa. But over the years I have found that perhaps the most polarizing views about Africa pertain to the women of Africa. I can recall some of the questions and comments that I received from different folks around the time that my wife and I were still dating. People assumed that because she was from Kenya and Kenya is in Africa that she must not be very self-assured or secure about herself. When I told them that just as we have here in the States I am sure that one could probably find some women in Africa that are more passive. But for some reason I’d have never personally come across any who fit that mold, including my wife, it was like we were speaking different languages to each other. Of course, gradually overtime they began to see that the ideas that they had turned out just to be generalizations…And though this is just another one of my side notes, I think it’s useful to the conversation. It is about Wairimu, (whom I am very happily married to by the way) by the time we met, she had already been a two-store manager for a local petroleum company in Atlanta, GA- this was long before she had a degree and when she was just 22 years old. The entrepreneurial aspirations that she shared with me at the time were to engage in health management facilities in Kenya after she learns the system here. I mention my wife’s example for two reasons 1) because I think that Wairimu’s spirit and determination reminds me a great deal of what the business women that I observed in the parts of Africa that I visited and 2) because I am so proud of her.
So now for the remainder of the post…Why it is so important for Africa to start drawing more upon women owned enterprises as a way to grow economically is what we will now look at. To sum it up Africa needs both more women entrepreneurs and more women entrepreneurs to make the transition from micro enterprise to small business or medium sized businesses and large businesses. This is because although Africa’s business women are already doing a lot to help their respective economies grow, in relation to their population numbers and ratios, Africa’s economies are still under utilizing business women. Additionally, in most rapid growth economies the high digit growth often comes from the small business sector. It should be noted that we are distinguishing small businesses from micro-businesses. The number of employees is one of the easiest ways to determine whether a business fits into the micro-business category (6-10 employees) or the small business category(11-50 employees). An observation that I have made and heard by others is that although there are some very strong and competitive indigenous businesses and industries within Africa, there seem to be a disproportionately larger number of micro-businesses than their larger cousins the small businesses. I believe this is more pronounced in Sub-Saharan Africa than North Africa because of the population trends. Sub-Saharan Africa has more women than men the aggregate total that I have heard about is that for every 100 men in SSA there are 102 women. In some parts of SSA this is much more acute than in other parts, but if women have more constraints and make up a larger part of the population than men, then that could explain why there is such a gap in Africa between informal1 to 10 person enterprises in Africa versus the formal 11 to 50 person enterprises. One more side note here is that large businesses in Africa are fairly abundant, it is the small businesses that usually lead to economic and employment growth since large firms are sometimes just as prone to lay off workers as they are to hiring them. This concept has allowed economists and policy makers to isolate the small business sector as the missing link to prosperity in many of Africa’s economies. Also something that I almost failed to mention is that the majority of Africa’s micro enterprise owners are women, so that has allowed economists to go a step beyond just saying Africa needs. This is one of the reasons that many of the social investment and micro-credit organizations operating in Africa target women for business development initiatives. Below is an excerpt which reinforces some of what was just said:
“…Gerry Finnegan, the director of the ILO Program on Women Entrepreneurs told Voice of America reporter Ruby Ofori, “What has happened is that …the larger businesses are not creating any new jobs. The public sector and state-owned enterprises have been cutting back on the number of workers for the past two years. Now people are thrown back on their own reserves, and many of them are starting up in businesses on their own.” Mr. Finnegan says around 100,000 women in Kenya and 200,000 women in Ethiopia run small businesses that have the potential to grow and employ more people if they are able to obtain the right support and funding. These businesses range from trading and services to handicrafts, tailoring, small-scale manufacturing and food processing…”
Source: VOA News
Prior to actually writing this post, my hope was that it would end up containing lot’s of data and statistics. Mainly what I found on this topic was very, very outdated. So instead what we will do is include a resources list at the end of this post. This is for anyone out there who just has to see some numbers and also for anyone out there who would cringe at the sight of seeing 10 year old statistics showing up in this post. Win-win situation, right Anyhow, I hope that this post was both enjoyable and informative to you. Stay tuned as we head into news covering Africa’s business women…and I hope to see you armed with lots of comments for this and the next couple of posts on the topic!
African Business Women Series Why So Important - To learn more about this author, visit Benin Mwangi's Website.
Like this article? Share it with your friends
 | |
 |
No article feedback found. |
| |
Leave Your Feedback |
 | |
| |||
Dianne CramptonDianne Crampton is an executive leadership coach, team culture consultant, author and president of TIGERS Success Series, Inc. Dianne has been helping CEO's and Executives connect their employees to their core values and goals for over 20 years using the trademarked TIGERS team culture process, which stands for trust, interdependence, genuineness, empathy, risk and success. To download a free white paper on behaviors that build strong teams and behaviors that will predictably tear them down go here. Dianne's contribution to the 2010 Pfeiffer Consulting Journal (an imprint of John Wiley and Sons Publishers) entitled TIGERS Hearted Teams is available in November 2009. Her new book TIGERS Among Us: 5 Winning Business Team Cultures And Why, Three Creeks Publishing will release in March 2010. To receive publishing discounts, subscribe to the free TigerTracks Newsletter here. - Visit Dianne Crampton's Website |
|||
Staging DivaDebra Gould, aka The Staging Diva®, is President of Six Elements Inc., an internationally recognized home staging company. Inspired by many requests from aspiring home stagers wanting to start similar businesses, Gould created the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program. Gould has trained over 1000 Staging Diva Graduates worldwide to start staging businesses. Buying decorating and selling six of her own homes in four years lead to an interest in real estate staging which she turned into a career with the launch of sixelements.com in 2002. Since then she has staged hundreds of homes in addition to teaching home staging training. Gould is the author of several home staging resources including a series of popular ebooks made up of a Design Guide, Color Guide and Portfolio Guide. For more information about Debra Gould visit stagingdiva.com. - Visit Staging Diva's Website |
|||
George LudwigGeorge Ludwig is a recognized authority on sales strategy and peak performance psychology. An international speaker, trainer, and corporate consultant, he helps clients like Johnson & Johnson, Abbott Laboratories, Northwestern Mutual, CIGNA, and numerous others improve sales force effectiveness and performance. Though it's George's strategies and processes that help corporations increase productivity and performance, it's his tremendous energy and dynamism that spark the transformation. Again and again, clients remark on his amazing ability to unleash human capacity and inspire men and women to break out of their comfort zones. The result is a whole new type of salesperson. His customized presentations teach achievers to make stunning advances in their lives. From helping salespeople realize cherished dreams to helping corporations exponentially accelerate revenue streams, George Ludwig leaves audiences and individuals empowered, emboldened, and clamoring for more. George is the best-selling author of Power Selling: Seven Strategies for Cracking the Sales Code and Wise Moves: 60 Quick Tips to Improve Your Position in Life & Business. - Visit George Ludwig's Website |
|||
David BarrDavid Barr is the President of Venture Opportunities, Inc. David has been a professional business broker/intermediary since 1980 focusing on General Business Brokerage and Mergers and Acquisitions representing client transaction value from $400,000 to $20,000,000. Mr. Barr has handled the sale of over four hundred and fifty companies. David earned a university degree from the State University of New York majoring in economics and business. David holds the Mergers and Acquisition Master Intermediary and the Certified Business Intermediary designations from the International Business Brokers Association. He is also a Senior Business Analyst and a Texas licensed Real Estate Agent. For more information about David and Venture Opportunities, visit www.bizdealmaker.com. - Visit David Barr's Website |
|||
Anne BarrAnne Barr has over 26 years experience in sales and marketing, six years as a franchisee. She has assisted over 367 business owners and purchasers to achieve their goals in career change, transition and exit strategy. She holds the designation of Certified Franchise Executive from the International Franchise Association, Certified Business Intermediary from the International Business Brokers Association and Board Certified Broker from the Texas Association of Business Brokers. Anne is active in professional organizations, networking groups and volunteers for non-profit entities. As owner/operator of four successful businesses, Anne has proven people skills and enjoys helping clients find the right "fit" in business ownership. Visit www.FranchiseOpportunitySpecialist.com for more information about me and my company. - Visit Anne Barr's Website |
|||
Casey GollanCasey Gollan, Business Coaching & Mentoring Programs. Add $1 Million to $10 Million in the next 1 to 3 years. Since 1996 Casey has to added hundreds of millions of dollars to businesses. Watch a free video see client results Business Coaching website. - Visit Casey Gollan's Website |
|||
Kim CastleWith nearly two decades in the advertising and design business, with clients like Domino's Pizza, General Motors, Direct TV, Pedigree, Wolfgang Puck, Higher Octave Music, Hollywood Celebrity Products, Disney, and Paramount, as well as thousands of entrepreneurs around the world define, structure, communicate, and position their business for greater profits, BrandU(R) co-creators Kim Castle and W. Vito Montone discovered that entrepreneurs could experience the same power that big brands command for a fraction of the cost with the world's only process-based results-drive Integral approach to business creation. BrandU(R) is helping entrepreneurs grow with the power of extreme clarity from idea...to brand...to market(TM) and helping one million entrepreneurs become successful and whole so that they can make a difference in the world. Are you one of them? If you want to experience clarity all the way to the bank(TM), get started now at http://www.brandu.com. - Visit Kim Castle's Website |
|||
Jeff FosterWebBizIdeas.com is a Minneapolis website design company founded to help people start an internet business by providing them with website, business, and internet resources that help foster the growth of successful online businesses and develop innovative Internet business ideas. We specialize in internet consulting & internet marketing. - Visit Jeff Foster's Website |
|||
|
To learn more about the Evan Elite Author Program please contact us. | |||
 | |
|  |
Subscribe to Benin's articles
 | |
|
|  |
 | |
|
| |
 | |||||||
|
 | ||
 |
||
 |
||
 |
||
|
| ||
 |
| Have you written articles that would be of value to entrepreneurs? Become an expert on our site by publishing them! Expose yourself to a wide audience, drive more traffic to your website and get more sales! Click Here for details. |
|
|
 |
| Modeling the Masters: Learn the true secrets behind Walt Disney's business success factors & grow your company! Video produced by Phanta Media |
|
|
 |
"Learn straight from Evan how you can Make a Full Time Income (And More) from a Website"
Click Here To Learn More |
|
|
|
|
Get advice & tips from famous business owners, new articles by entrepreneur experts, my latest website updates, & special sneak peaks at what's to come!
|
|
|
 5 Step Action Plan Find & Keep Profitable Clients A Clean Desk 3 Deadly Traps The Evolution Of Networking |
|
 | ||
 |
The Top 10 Guy Kawasaki Posts
Best Posts for Entrepreneurs | |
 |
Choose A PR Topic
Press Release Builder | |
| ||
 | ||||
| ||||
|
| ||||
| ||||
|
|
|
|
|
|||||||||
|
Email us your ideas on how to make our website more valuable! Thank you Sharon from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for your suggestions to make the newsletter look like the website and profile younger entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez and Sean Combs!
|
|
|
| ||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||