Women's Entrepreneurship Development

While there are many successful women entrepreneurs around the world, pervasive gendered inequalities challenge women’s ability to start and grow their businesses in most countries. As a result, women-owned and led businesses tend to be smaller than those run by men, concentrated in sectors with limited potential for value addition and over-represented in the informal economy. These challenges are compounded by women’s care responsibilities as well as by unfavourable institutional environments that can result in uneven access to resources and decision-making roles, and inadequate social protection coverage.

Guided by the strategy on promoting women’s entrepreneurship development, the ILO works across multiple levels to address barriers and unlock opportunities for women entrepreneurs. Applying an evidence-based approach while drawing upon its unique mandate, the ILO focuses on:

Creating a more enabling environment for women entrepreneurs by addressing some of the systemic constraints that women entrepreneurs encounter through collective action.
Building institutional capacity for constituents and other organizations to offer gender-responsive services and to advocate for and amplify the voices of women entrepreneurs.
Facilitating the delivery of tailored training and transformative solutions responding to the specific needs and demands of women entrepreneurs.