Launching Our New, Open-Access Business Resilience Programme

Many women are struggling to keep their businesses afloat in these difficult times, and lack the support they need to adapt and sustain their businesses. This stands to have severe knock-on effects on their families, communities and economies.

Our survey, carried out in April 2020, of the women in our programmes paints a challenging picture of the landscape and depth of need:

• 93% had already been negatively impacted by COVID-19 by the end of April
• Of those already impacted, 44% had ceased operations temporarily and 3% had ceased operations permanently
• 75% requested additional support from us

Leading the response to these challenges and needs, we partnered with Cambridge Wireless, Synergy Solutions and King’s College London to build a new and immediate programme of support that focuses on business resilience, specifically for women entrepreneurs. With valuable contributions from academia and the business sector, including SLVC Voice Training in London, it helps women who own businesses — both those already in our programmes and those who are new to us — to quickly combat the effects of COVID-19, whilst preparing them to operate in the new landscape that they are faced with. It forms part of our 100,000 Women Campaign to directly support 100,000 more women in low and middle income countries by 2022.

This free-to-access, online training programme guides women entrepreneurs through the development of a 90-day action plan to safeguard their businesses. Users can learn in bite-size chunks, from home, at a time when it suits them, and have access to a range of tasks, lessons and informative videos. The programme shows how to measure the true impact of COVID-19 on your business, from supply chains to reduced footfall, and how to assess and build resilience. When users have finished the programme, they will have set a 90-day action plan to achieve their new strategic goals to ensure their business can get through the global crisis.

We want to give women the best chance possible to keep their business resilient through these uncertain times because, when the dust settles, we know women entrepreneurs will play a huge role in rebuilding our global economy and creating a bright future.

If you’re a woman entrepreneur in a low or middle income country who would like to enrol in the programme, you can do so at www.businessresilience4we.org/register.