The latest Mastercard Index of Women Entrepreneurs (Miwe) indicated that despite the gender gap and the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, women in South Africa are making progress as entrepreneurs.
It highlighted the socio-economic contributions of women entrepreneurs across the world and provided insight on the factors driving and inhibiting their advancement.
The Miwe made a compelling case for building on targeted gender-specific policy best practices internationally.
This index drew on publicly available data from leading international organisations such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and International Labour Organisation.
It also included a global ranking of the advancement of women in business across 65 economies, and how they differ in terms of the levels of ‘Women’s Advancement Outcomes’, ‘Knowledge Assets & Financial Access’ and ‘Supporting Entrepreneurial Conditions’.
According to Miwe, South Africa moved up one place from 2020 to rank 37th on the 2021 index with a score of 54.9, women’s advancement remaining hampered by less supportive entrepreneurial conditions.
South Africa moved up two places on the Women Business Owner benchmark to rank 44th, with 21.9 percent of all businesses owned by women in 2021 versus 21.1 percent in 2020.
Botswana ranked first in the world with the highest percentage of women business owners (38.5 percent), followed by Uganda (38.4 percent) and Ghana (37.2 percent).
Country Manager of Mastercard, Southern Africa, Gabriel Swanepoel, said the 2021 Miwe reflects the challenges of an uncertain global entrepreneurial landscape with a rise in both female and male necessity-driven entrepreneurship as many had lost their jobs arising from lockdown and restriction measures.
“The fact that women entrepreneurial activity rates in South Africa grew in a year when many other economies did not, together with the fact that female necessity-driven entrepreneurship surpassed that of males, indicates their strong will, resilience and determination to survive,” said Swanepoel.
South Africa performed well in the “Women’s Advancement Outcome” component (ranked 21), which measures women’s progress and degree of marginalisation as business leaders, professionals, entrepreneurs, and labour force participants.
BUSINESS REPORT ONLINE