Survivors &Thrivers
WHILE GENDER EQUITY VARIES from country to country, in South Africa, wealth managers and financial planners consistently state that the country needs to invest in its female entrepreneurs because they have a critical role to play in socio-economic recovery and progress. According to research by Development Economics, women-owned businesses established between 2018 and 2022 may generate an estimated R175 billion ($10 billion) a year and create close to a million jobs. The World Bank also reports that women are critical for job creation.
With an economy plagued by the pandemic, and amid rising youth unemployment and looming recession, these female business owners recognized gaps in the market and launched their own startups, surviving crises and even thriving. Although they are in different industries, they all have one thing in common – resilience, the mark of a true African entrepreneur.
SERISHA BARRAT, LAWYERED UP
According to SME South Africa, South African tech startups continued to innovate and launch solutions in response to myriad challenges, including Covid-19. Awardwinning documentary , screened by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT) Martin Trust Center, cites that being a female entrepreneur in the technology industry is bleaker than most. More facts: in Silicon Valley, women earn only 49 cents to a man's dollar; only 12% of undergrad computer science degrees are earned by women and only 3% of tech startups are created by women. These numbers are discouraging but not to
