Take Our Business Bootcamp
In response to the challenges facing women entrepreneurs in low and middle income countries as a result of COVID-19, and the accompanying needs, we’re making 24 ‘Business Bootcamp’ training webinars, previously developed with our partner Accenture for our Skilling for Change programme, open-access and available for free on our website.
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 recent survey of the women in our programmes paints a challenging picture of the landscape and depth of need.
Thanks to tech, we’re able to take action and meet this need. We’re releasing this expert online training series to enable women across the globe to rapidly access resources from home. This will not only help them to start, grow and safeguard businesses, and by extension support their families and communities, but also help ensure women can contribute to a worldwide post-pandemic rebuild.
The Business Bootcamp series comprises 24 pre-recorded webinars, each around 45 minutes to an hour long, and aims to increase women entrepreneurs’ business skills, financial literacy and knowledge on growth and investment options. Each webinar is geared around a topic like understanding business models and registration formalities, accounting and book-keeping, financial services, assessing business health, costing and pricing, managing credit and debit, and – crucially for the current era – planning for ups and downs.
These resources were originally developed for the Foundation’s Skilling for Change programme in Rwanda, delivered with Accenture and CARE International. It used digital technology to support over 16,000 women to turn their micro enterprises into profitable and sustainable businesses.
Through the project, over 14,000 businesses were either established or grown and over 3,000 new jobs were created. Over 4,000 women gained access to formal finance and 91% saw an increase in profit. Overall, the financial situation of the women improved by 110%.
While these concrete results by themselves illustrate the positive effects that this webinar series stands to have, the scope of the impact does not stop there. Research the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women co-published with Boston Consulting Group last year shows that closing the gender gap in entrepreneurship would see global GDP rise by up to $5 trillion. Now, during a worldwide economic crisis, the need for such tremendous benefit is felt more heavily than ever.