Unlocking the potential of women entrepreneurs for a more inclusive economy

Introduction

Africa leads the world in the number of women-led small and medium enterprises (WSMEs), with 26 percent of women across the continent engaging in entrepreneurial activity. Despite numerous incentives to invest in women entrepreneurs, systematic barriers continue to block women’s access to markets, networks, and capital, resulting in a gender financing gap of US$42 billion across Africa.

While access to finance is crucial for these businesses to succeed, it’s not the only key to success. The study “Women Entrepreneurs’ Capabilities and Business Survival of Small Scale Enterprises in Nigeria” found a significant relationship between women’s self-confidence and the survival of small-scale enterprises in Nigeria. Women with high self-confidence are more motivated to start and manage businesses, which enhances their chances of success. Innovation and creativity enable small enterprises to adapt, grow, and withstand shocks, supporting business longevity. This finding aligns with prior research, which also identified the positive effect self-confidence has on the business performance of MSMEs.

With these findings in mind, Accion’s Digital Women Entrepreneurs Marketplace Enablement Initiative recent pilot program in Nigeria centered on creating a comprehensive support system aimed at empowering women entrepreneurs through improved market access, financial tools, and digital enablement. Our approach involved:

1. Collaborating with local partners to deploy tailored business support that enables women entrepreneurs to adopt integrated digital services and capitalize on new business opportunities with relevant third-party service providers.
2. Delivering physical and digital capacity-building programs, and advisory support to equip WSMEs with digital tools and enhance operational efficiency, productivity, and resilience within their small and micro businesses.

The outcomes of this project demonstrated significant potential for impact. Our findings underscore that with the right support, women entrepreneurs can leverage their inherent capabilities — such as self-confidence, innovation, and self-reliance — to drive substantial growth and resilience. We also found that facilitating greater digital and financial inclusion interventions can contribute to the sustainable growth of women-led businesses and promote a more inclusive economic landscape.

Our learnings emphasize three areas for improvement that are critical to unlocking the full economic potential of women-led enterprises:

1. Increased market reach and revenue growth: Through the access to digital marketplaces and formal supply chains, many participating WSMEs were able to increase their customer base and sales volumes. This enabled them to generate revenue via new channels and also contributed to closing the sales gap between male- and female-owned enterprises in target markets.
2. Enhanced financial inclusion and access to capital: By improving access to financing tools and building creditworthiness through the use of digital financial services, the program enabled a greater number of women-led businesses to secure formal funding. Many participants reported an improved cash flow and the ability to make important business investments that were needed to facilitate sustainable growth for their micro and small enterprises (MSEs).
3. Strengthened entrepreneurial capabilities: The program’s emphasis on developing entrepreneurial skills, including self-confidence, digital enablement and innovation, equipped the women entrepreneurs with the knowledge needed to make strategic decisions and adapt to business challenges while defining a growth path.

Our approach

Our approach to removing the constraints that women entrepreneurs face, building their resilience, and enhancing operational sustainability amid economic uncertainties centered on these three pillars of intervention:​

1. Improved market access: Establishing referral partnerships with marketplaces and off-takers to broaden sales channels for women-led businesses.
2. Digital enablement: Delivering multi-layered capacity-building and business advisory support to equip WSMEs with tools to boost efficiency, productivity, and financial resilience.
3. Facilitated access to funding: Through referral partnerships with FSPs and via direct input financing.

To achieve this, the project offered extensive advisory and technical support to selected anchor service providers to solve the capacity and capability gaps among service providers that lead to women’s exclusion from digital services. This, in turn, will help financial and other service providers to better understand women’s behaviors, needs, and goals and offer gender-intentional digitally enabled financial products.

By empowering women entrepreneurs with tailored digital solutions, the program supported their resilience amid changing market conditions, allowing these businesses to pivot quickly and maintain stability, even in challenging economic climates.

Demand-side issues such as women entrepreneurs’ lack of access to relevant and contextual tools, know-how, and networks also play a key role in their inability to take advantage of digital-first new business models and opportunities. With this, the project deployed a targeted capacity-building curriculum and practical tools to enable rapid adoption of integrated digital services, allowing women entrepreneurs to capitalize on emerging business opportunities. Addressing barriers and enhancing these capabilities can further empower women entrepreneurs to thrive and make significant contributions to the economy. Integrating formal financial services and digital tools aimed at enhancing operational efficiency for each WSME also equips them with the knowledge and resources needed to serve as a buffer against economic shocks.

Through the Digital Women Entrepreneurs Marketplace Enablement Initiative, Accion helped to drive transformative change by addressing many of the underlying obstacles limiting women’s full participation in the digital economy. Acting as a catalyst and key enabler within the broader ecosystem, we fostered partnerships with various actors to define and redesign products and value propositions within a collaborative environment for the target segments.

By facilitating women’s entry into the digital economy and enhancing digital financial literacy, the program attempted to mitigate barriers around access to finance and digital business tools. We worked with our partners to provide a pathway for women to gain greater autonomy over their businesses and amplify their economic contributions in Nigeria and in turn, across Africa.

Partnerships

Taking an ecosystem approach allowed the initiative to leverage complementary strengths across various sectors, ensuring a holistic support structure for women entrepreneurs. By integrating financial, technical, and sector-specific resources, the model created a sustainable ecosystem in which each partner offered a unique value proposition to the beneficiary. This collaborative approach attempts to expand the growth opportunities presented to WSMEs by addressing multiple barriers, concurrently. Through these strategic partnerships, the initiative created an environment for knowledge sharing, co-creation, partner capacity improvement, and innovation, ensuring that women entrepreneurs receive the comprehensive support they need to succeed.

Key partners and their roles 

The key challenge our partnership with HerVest aimed to solve was around how to help women-led micro and small enterprises in hard-to-reach locations, with basic (feature) phones and low internet connectivity, participate in key financial services, access market opportunities, and increase sales and income.

New Faces New Voices (NFNV-Nigeria) develops tailored capacity-building programs and mentorship workshops for women entrepreneurs across the agriculture, small-scale production, hospitality, fashion, and textiles sectors across Gombe, Kebbi, and Oyo States in Nigeria. We partnered with NFNV-Nigeria to equip women entrepreneurs with the knowledge, product offerings, and networks to navigate the digital ecosystem.

Results

We initially onboarded 350 Nigerian WSMEs to both partners’ networks across Nigeria’s North East, North West, and North Central regions. Over the course of five days, these women business owners accessed physical and digital capacity-building programs with sector-specific training modules, which enabled them to translate digital skills into immediate operational improvements in their agriculture, hospitality, and retail businesses, contributing to increased resilience. Both partners continued to deploy these programs via physical group sessions with women entrepreneur groups and clusters, further extending the reach of the project and increasing the number of women onboarded.

Access to digital finance and growth in revenue: By month 6, post-program, a total of 427 women smallholder farmers were directly accessing financial products through HerVest. In addition to this, monthly impact data collected by both partners indicated the following increase in household savings for a percentage of the women entrepreneurs:

• Month 1           56%
• Month 2           62.3%
• Month 3           64.3%
• Month 4           66.6%
• Month 5           62.3%
• Month 6           60.3%

This data reflects the growth in revenue increase, especially in Month 4, which saw the end of the farming season, demonstrating the program’s impact on women-led businesses over time.

In addition to the success of the trainings, we onboarded 559 WSMEs to five financial service partner solutions by the end of the project. This allowed them to gain access to payment processing, credit, savings accounts, and other financial services. Partnerships with Accion Microfinance Bank, TeasyPay, and Net Microfinance were established to facilitate the delivery of digital financial services.

Access to markets through agri off-takers and e-commerce: A total of 171 women smallholder farmers sold outputs through HerVest, and 39 women in retail and general trade gained access to the Kasuwa24 digital marketplace, indicating participation and access to additional markets for the WSMEs.

Access to tailored capacity building programs: Upon completion of the in-person training sessions hosted by HerVest and NFNV-Nigeria, A total of 304 WSMEs, comprised of 199 women smallholder farmers and 105 WSMEs in the retail and trade sectors, reported that the training and tools provided were relevant to both their business and household needs. 53 women specialized in small-scale production and retail trade participated in mentorship sessions designed to provide continuous business support and advisory to the women entrepreneurs.

Through the in-person workshops, the women entrepreneurs were introduced to and trained on how to use LolaDigital, Accion’s digital capacity-building platform with self-paced learning modules tailored for women entrepreneurs seeking to strengthen and grow their online businesses. 76 percent of participants created LolaDigital accounts, and 68 percent of these WSMEs completed at least one learning module on the platform. This engagement demonstrates a strong initial uptake of the program, reflecting both the effectiveness of the onboarding process and participants’ commitment to applying these new skills to support their business growth.

Lessons learned

1. Strategic partner selection and localization are a crucial part of success

Partnering with organizations such as HerVest and NFNV-Nigeria, which have a deep understanding of local market dynamics and gender-specific challenges in these markets, was critical to the program’s success. HerVest introduced an extensive knowledge of local market dynamics and crucial insights into regional economic activities, demand trends, and financing gaps specific to women-led agribusinesses. NFNV Nigeria leveraged its understanding of the socio-cultural norms that often influence access to finance, business ownership, and community engagement for women, tailoring interventions in a way that addressed these cultural factors and facilitating a more inclusive and impactful outreach approach.

These partnerships revealed that local knowledge and established community trust are essential in reaching women in remote or underserved areas, to ensure optimal engagement, adoption, and utilization of value propositions. Effective partnerships can dramatically improve outreach, engagement, and impact. They ensure that interventions are contextually relevant, culturally sensitive, and accessible to underserved groups.

2. Trust-based customer acquisition facilitates higher engagement

The project, through its partners, successfully demonstrated that building trust is essential for onboarding women entrepreneurs, particularly in rural areas. By establishing relationships through community savings groups and sector-specific cooperatives, the partners fostered trust at a grassroots level. This approach goes beyond traditional customer acquisition methods, creating a sense of security and reliability that is crucial for women who have limited exposure to formal financial services and may be hesitant to engage with such systems.

The model centered on trust-building through transparency, consistent communication, and reliable service delivery. This trust-based model not only facilitates higher engagement and retention rates but also encourages word-of-mouth referrals within close-knit communities. For women in rural areas, having trust in an institution’s services means they feel confident adopting digital tools, exploring new market opportunities, and participating in financial services that were previously inaccessible. Sector-specific training is essential to enable meaningful adoption of digital tools.

3. Customized capacity-building and literacy training allows women entrepreneurs to better capitalize on opportunities

Through customized training, women entrepreneurs acquired the skills needed to leverage digital tools effectively within their business operations. NFNV-Nigeria’s workshops catered to the unique needs of sectors such as retail trade, hospitality, and small-scale production, underscoring the importance of sector-specific capacity building for impactful digital adoption. This approach enabled participants in the hospitality, production, and retail sectors to translate learnings and tools into the day-to-day operations of their business, as well as individual household needs. With a specialized focus on agrifinance and agribusiness skills, offering valuable insights and resources for women entrepreneurs working within agricultural value chains, HerVest addressed the specific financial and operational needs of the agriculture sector.

The various capacity-building programs better enabled participants to understand and navigate digital and financial tools tailored to their industries, helping them to capitalize on opportunities within their various geographies and address sector-specific challenges. By tailoring training to the industry and practical needs of women entrepreneurs, the program empowered participants to leverage digital solutions that align with both business and household requirements. This approach enhanced learning retention and real-world application, leading to measurable business growth.

4. Tailored/flexible value propositions for diverse needs enables broader participation

HerVest’s integration of feature-phone-compatible services and offline financing options allowed for inclusiveness, demonstrating the need for adaptable technology solutions that accommodate varying levels of digital access. This approach enabled broader participation, particularly among rural women farmers, and underscored the value of flexible digital solutions in enhancing financial inclusivity.

NFNV-Nigeria played a pivotal role in defining and facilitating referrals to partners with diverse value propositions, leveraging its deep understanding of gender-specific barriers to financial access. NFNV’s role in connecting women entrepreneurs to partners offering a variety of financial and non-financial services, including credit, payment processing, e-commerce, and business advisory, allowed for a more comprehensive support network, addressing the varied needs of women in different sectors and stages of business growth.

Developing solutions that address specific needs at each growth stage — from starting the necessity-based business idea as a first-time customer of the solution to advanced financial products for scaling the business — promotes deeper financial inclusivity and greater program adoption. By supporting women entrepreneurs with adaptable solutions at each business phase, the program built a long-term partnership that fostered trust, stability, and growth. This ensured that women entrepreneurs gained access to tailored options that match their specific business needs and personal circumstances, further enhancing the program’s inclusivity and ultimately strengthening the impact on both individual enterprises and the broader economic landscape.

5. Leveraging aggregated demand for market access facilitates sustainability

HerVest’s model of aggregating demand and securing off-taker agreements demonstrated a sustainable approach to increasing market access for women-led businesses. This model further facilitated the easier recovery of credit disbursed, as women entrepreneurs could reliably forecast earnings and maintain regular repayment schedules thanks to steady demand and revenue flow from a committed aggregator(s).

A predictable cash flow, coupled with an established buyer base, mitigates repayment risks and enhances the financial institutions’ confidence in extending credit to women-led enterprises. By connecting these entrepreneurs to guaranteed buyers, the approach mitigated market volatility, improved income stability, and reinforced a willingness to lend, knowing that structured market access reduces default risk. This model illustrates a pathway for leveraging market demand to enhance both business resilience and financial inclusion, making credit access and repayment more feasible for underserved women entrepreneurs.

6. Continuous support and mentorship encourage greater and more effective digital and financial tools adoption

The mentorship component, coupled with ongoing advisory support, plays a crucial role in ensuring that women entrepreneurs can effectively implement digital and financial tools. The program fostered a sense of community, enabling shared learning and problem solving among participants, and revealed the importance of sustained engagement beyond initial capacity-building sessions. This model promotes a supportive community where participants can gain practical insights, share experiences, and troubleshoot issues, ultimately leading to increased business resilience and growth.

The program demonstrated that capability building in financial services, digital literacy, and business management combined with access to digital tools, financial products, and markets serves as a powerful catalyst for adoption. By enhancing both, the initiative not only enabled women to adopt digital tools but also empowered them to utilize these tools effectively, leading to measurable improvements in business resilience and growth.

7. Leveraging catalytic capital supports the design and deployment of tailored financial products and digital solutions

To bridge the gap between product design and successful adoption among underserved segments, catalytic capital plays a crucial role. This type of funding supports the design and deployment of tailored financial and digital solutions that address the unique needs of women entrepreneurs, allowing them to experience and realize the value of these tools while lowering the initial risk to the institution.

HerVest’s role exemplifies this. Catalytic capital was used to develop solutions that might otherwise be inaccessible to rural women-led SMEs. To unlock the full potential of these initiatives, increased financing is crucial. Financing directed towards the initiative can expand the reach, refine approaches, and accelerate innovation, leading to financial products and services that are more responsive, scalable, and accessible to underserved women-led enterprises. This additional investment will ensure that successful pilots and prototypes are adapted for larger markets, demonstrating both financial and social returns.

Through this initiative, we have seen the transformative potential of empowering women entrepreneurs. Addressing systemic barriers and supporting women with digital tools, relevant and responsible financial products and services, and tailored capacity building increase their ability and confidence to run successful businesses. Continued investment in similar programs is key to developing high-performing and sustainable women-led enterprises and driving economic growth, in Africa and beyond.

Client testimonial

For Mrs. Iyabo Baba Raji, a maize farmer from Kwara state, Nigeria, access to formal financial services was a challenge, compounded by limited market connections and no formal training on improving her farm’s productivity. At the HerVest training focused on farm business management and digital literacy, she learned essential skills like recordkeeping, budgeting, and financial decision-making. With input financing from HerVest, Mrs. Iyabo improved her farm operations and connected with better markets. These efforts have not only boosted her income but have also enabled her to create a more secure and stable livelihood for her family.