Our impact

Our mission is to empower women to start, grow and sustain successful businesses, so they can redefine the future for themselves and their societies. And since 2008, we’ve enabled over 230,000 women entrepreneurs in more than 100 countries to do that.

We’ve also worked to influence companies, policymakers, governments, multilateral organisations and individuals all over the world to tackle the gendered barriers holding back women entrepreneurs.

Our work has played a vital role in enabling hundreds of thousands of women to become better off, more secure and more independent. And it has helped level the playing field for women entrepreneurs everywhere.

Measuring our impact

Our work with women entrepreneurs happens within the bigger picture of women’s economic empowerment overall.

Our view is that a woman is economically empowered when she enjoys her rights to control economic resources and has the power to make both business and personal decisions that benefit herself, her family and her community.

We view economic empowerment as a process involving multiple changes across different areas of life and society: women’s access to economic opportunities, political and legal systems​, social norms and attitudes​, household factors​, individual capabilities, women’s ability to exercise agency, and women’s economic achievements​.

Our work specifically and directly supports women entrepreneurs through programmes that bring about changes in the following crucial areas of women’s economic empowerment:​

• Improving women’s access to economic opportunities​
• Women entrepreneurs’ individual knowledge, skills and capabilities​
• Women entrepreneurs’ agency and empowerment​
• Women entrepreneur’s economic achievements​

We measure our impact against each of the areas outlined above.​

We also advocate with and for women entrepreneurs to improve the entrepreneurship ecosystem in which they operate in low and middle income countries. Focusing on:​

• Political and legal systems​
• Social norms and attitudes​
• Household factors and resource allocation​