Empowering women to achieve their full potential is one of the most powerful ways to fight poverty. Yet in countries like Uganda where JumpStart Africa works, women continue to face tremendous barriers to success. They have limited access to the productive resources like land, finance, and information that they need to grow their businesses, and they are disproportionately affected poverty, violence, and discrimination. In most cases, women must also balance the bulk of household and childcare responsibilities with efforts to improve their skills and earn independent incomes.
Investing in opportunities for women could have tremendous economic and social impact. If women entrepreneurs had the same access as men to training, information, and resources, they could increase productivity and profitability of their enterprises up to 30%. And on a wider scale, a recent study estimated that women’s equal participation in the labor market would increase the global GDP 26%, or $28 trillion. Moreover, women’s economic empowerment not only promotes greater economic development but greater equity, opportunity, and social progress.
Our Work Empowering Women Economically
JumpStart Africa works creatively and proactively to help women around the world gain equal access to the knowledge, jobs, and finance that enhance both their incomes and their opportunities for the future. Our work centers around three main goals:- Providing access to micro-credit and other financial services to women entrepreneurs especially those who are unbanked.
- Training, supporting, and empowering women as entrepreneurs. Closing gender gaps in the performance of small enterprises led women or men.
- Building inclusive and competitive businesses that generate decent opportunities for women and men employees, suppliers, and consumers.