Women’s Entrepreneurship Day 2020: more crucial than ever
On Thursday 19 November, we are celebrating Women’s Entrepreneurship Day 2020.
The Cherie Blair Foundation for Women was founded by Cherie Blair CBE QC in 2011 to support woman entrepreneurs all over the world. Since then, we’ve reached over 175,000 women in low and middle income countries, supporting them to start and grow successful businesses. Our 100,000 Women Campaign, and the end of year appeal we are launching today, will enable us to reach many more women by the end of 2022.
In the context of a global pandemic, which has disproportionately impacted women, this Women’s Entrepreneurship Day is more crucial than ever. It is a fantastic opportunity for us to celebrate the previously untapped power and potential of the women entrepreneurs, who will be so crucial to efforts to re-build economies post COVID 19 and to highlight the importance of the global community working with us to close the gender gap in entrepreneurship.
Women entrepreneurs all over the word have been persevering and persisting to keep their businesses, their families and themselves afloat through the COVID 19 crisis and the resulting economic fall-out. Research we published in 2019 with the Boston Consulting Group, highlighted that there is $5 trillion dollars missing from the global economy due to the gender gap in entrepreneurship. If we do not harness the power of women entrepreneurs now our economies will recover slower, communities will continue to struggle, and we risk bringing progress toward gender equality across the world to a standstill.
Persisting through adversity
Despite the challenges of COVID-19, the Foundation’s work to support women entrepreneurs in low and middle income countries has continued and adapted to meet women’s changing situations. This Women’s Entrepreneurship Day, we are delighted to be celebrating:
- Our HerVenture app was launched in Kenya earlier this year, and was downloaded over 1,100 times by Kenyan women entrepreneurs in just three months. Read all about it and watch the video here.
- Our Road to Growth project in Mexico supported women entrepreneurs through a global pandemic. Take a look at their stories to find out how Melina grew her confidence, how Marisol established her business’ direction, how Sophie developed through COVID-19, and how Fernanda grew her network.
- 490 mentors and mentees graduated from our flagship international mentoring programme this month, having worked together with their mentors over the course of a year to grow their businesses. Read about how we’re celebrating our graduated mentors and mentees here and click here to read about one mentoring pair’s journey with the Foundation.
- We produced a range of high-profile webinars for global audiences, including a discussion on driving women’s access to mobile business skills learning.
