INTRODUCTION

As Voltaire said: “Work removes from us three great evils: boredom, vice and need”. Through work, women are important, valued and autonomous. They can not only undertake but also be useful to the community. How can we make female entrepreneurship more effective and accelerate women’s empowerment? To improve women’s entrepreneurship, we need to support female entrepreneurs, facilitate access to finance and encourage ongoing training for women.

Raising awareness on female entrepreneurship

Female entrepreneurship is defined as setting up a project using one’s resources or external funding to create added value in a specific field and doing so as a woman. For Dina Lavoie, a woman entrepreneur is “someone who, alone or with one or more partners, has founded, bought or inherited a business, who assumes all the financial, administrative and social risks and responsibilities, and who is involved in its day-to-day management”. Entrepreneurship requires a long-term vision. From childhood onwards, we need to instill the desire in little girls, include it in school or university curricula and thus train future female entrepreneurs. It is necessary to help the community by creating local businesses.

Women entrepreneurs

Setting up a business is not easy. It requires courage and the support of those around you. It is therefore essential that policymakers, through small and medium-sized enterprises, can support women entrepreneurs through laws that would allow them to benefit from financing and make investments. We also need to ensure that women have access to appropriate facilities, even in rural areas. The administration must provide legal documents as quickly as possible. Women must be trained and encouraged to set up businesses in rural areas. This would reduce the rural exodus. Streamlining procedures would help obtain funding to sustain local businesses.

Access to finance

The creation of various funds would help women to get started. The funds would enable them to implement their projects and facilitate financial autonomy. For example, there is already the Support Fund for Women’s Remunerative Activities in Burkina Faso, the Agency for the Financing and Promotion of Small and Medium Enterprises or Burkina Suudu Bawdè. These different structures support women in their income-generating activities.