A research by one of the world’s largest plastic card companies, MasterCard, has shown that even though conditions can be discouraging, some of the highest rates of female entrepreneurs can be seen in lower-income countries such as Uganda and Bangladesh.
While in contrast and opposing to pursuing a promising business opportunity, more women in developing markets were driven by necessity to start their own enterprise, found MasterCard's Index of Women Entrepreneurs Report 2017 which was released to coincide with International Women's Day.
On a scale of one (least favorable) to 100 (most favorable), indicators that determine how easy it is for female business owners to thrive, was used to find out the relavent positioning of women entrepreneurs in the report that studied and ranked women and economies from 54 countries all across the globe.
While the east African nation Uganda scored poorly on the Index of Women Entrepreneurs with a score of 58.6, this nation was found to possess the highest percentage of female business owners at 34.8 percent. Poor governance and high barriers to starting a business is the primary reason for the poor score on the Index of Women Entrepreneurs in the study.
However, a healthy cultural and social acceptance of female entrepreneurs was indeed present in Uganad, the study found out.
Offering resources such as business advisory services and credit facilitation services, the country and the society as a whole also has a strong support from various associations such as Enterprise Uganda and Uganda Women Entrepreneurs Association.
On the other hand, 31.6 percent of all business owners are comprised of women entrepreneurs in the country of Bangladesh in Asia. But the country has very poor financial access and mechanisms supporting entrepreneurial conditions, knowledge assets, and women advancement outcomes, and the report found that the number of women entrepreneurs was very high despite these handicaps.
In the country of Bangladesh, which is predominantly a developing country at best, entrepreneurship is believed as and viewed to be a vehicle to drive growth and help to alleviate poverty. However, there, due to socio-cultural bias and a lack of societal encouragement, there is the distinct disadvantage for women venturing to start their own business.
This fact clearly gets reflected in the labour market, where women just comprise 25 percent of all professional or technical workers and where female business leaders account for a meager 5.5 percent of the total.
The report found that women generally "tap on business segments that are non-knowledge or innovation-oriented and within their local environment” in other developing markets where there is strong representation of female entrepreneurs such as China, Vietnam and Botswana.
MasterCard report mentioned that in terms of supportive conditions and opportunities, New Zealand, Canada and the United States are the top three countries that possess it.
(Source:www.cnbc.com)
While in contrast and opposing to pursuing a promising business opportunity, more women in developing markets were driven by necessity to start their own enterprise, found MasterCard's Index of Women Entrepreneurs Report 2017 which was released to coincide with International Women's Day.
On a scale of one (least favorable) to 100 (most favorable), indicators that determine how easy it is for female business owners to thrive, was used to find out the relavent positioning of women entrepreneurs in the report that studied and ranked women and economies from 54 countries all across the globe.
While the east African nation Uganda scored poorly on the Index of Women Entrepreneurs with a score of 58.6, this nation was found to possess the highest percentage of female business owners at 34.8 percent. Poor governance and high barriers to starting a business is the primary reason for the poor score on the Index of Women Entrepreneurs in the study.
However, a healthy cultural and social acceptance of female entrepreneurs was indeed present in Uganad, the study found out.
Offering resources such as business advisory services and credit facilitation services, the country and the society as a whole also has a strong support from various associations such as Enterprise Uganda and Uganda Women Entrepreneurs Association.
On the other hand, 31.6 percent of all business owners are comprised of women entrepreneurs in the country of Bangladesh in Asia. But the country has very poor financial access and mechanisms supporting entrepreneurial conditions, knowledge assets, and women advancement outcomes, and the report found that the number of women entrepreneurs was very high despite these handicaps.
In the country of Bangladesh, which is predominantly a developing country at best, entrepreneurship is believed as and viewed to be a vehicle to drive growth and help to alleviate poverty. However, there, due to socio-cultural bias and a lack of societal encouragement, there is the distinct disadvantage for women venturing to start their own business.
This fact clearly gets reflected in the labour market, where women just comprise 25 percent of all professional or technical workers and where female business leaders account for a meager 5.5 percent of the total.
The report found that women generally "tap on business segments that are non-knowledge or innovation-oriented and within their local environment” in other developing markets where there is strong representation of female entrepreneurs such as China, Vietnam and Botswana.
MasterCard report mentioned that in terms of supportive conditions and opportunities, New Zealand, Canada and the United States are the top three countries that possess it.
(Source:www.cnbc.com)