ABOUT SHE AWARDS BIG 4

SHE AWARDS is an annual non-monetary business awards ceremony for women entrepreneurs in Africa launched in 2021. It was conceived to serve the strategic objectives of recognizing, rewarding and retaining high-quality creative entrepreneurship, innovation, research and development resulting in sustainable women-led SMEs.

SHE AWARDS exists to recognize and appreciate women founders developing our nation while creating jobs through entrepreneurship; and also motivate the ones who are yet to start their own businesses.

What makes SHE AWARDS unique is the impact it has on young women entrepreneurs. Rather than awarding successful seasoned entrepreneurs, we award the young women founders running startups.

The economic success of nations worldwide is the result of encouraging and rewarding the entrepreneurial instinct.

Entrepreneurs create employment opportunities not only for themselves but for others as well. Entrepreneurial activities may influence a country’s economic performance by bringing new products, methods, and production processes to the market and by boosting productivity and competition more broadly.

OVERVIEW

SHE AWARDS wants to grow the number of socially and economically empowered women entrepreneurs who run women-owned/women-led sustainable businesses in Africa.

Women face gender-based barriers when starting and growing their businesses, for example, in accessing business development support, social capital, and financial service. Underpinning these difficulties are gender norms that implicitly or explicitly make the enabling environment more challenging for women in business. Support programmes aimed at women entrepreneurs are important in overcoming the barriers that impact their ability to start and grow their businesses

UNDP estimates that 53% of rural women and 63% of urban women live below the poverty line. It is also estimated that 85% of businesses in the informal sector and 48% of small and micro-enterprises are owned by women who face the twin challenge of lack of business skills and financing.

Membership in business associations provides a venue for exchanging information and building partnerships. Yet prevailing social norms and women's time burdens can make networking a challenge for women. Networking often entails attending social events such as golf games or bar outings, which is often not a feasible option for a woman: (IFC)

“My competitors are all men, and they plan golf and go to a bar. So people say networking is easier for them.” Esther Passaris, Adopt A Light (IFC)

As a result, women can be left out of important networking events, where key contracts are won and orders secured

Raising start-up capital is one of the biggest challenges for women entrepreneurs in Africa’s key manufacturing sector, with banks requiring collateral that most of them do not have, a new study has found.

Most women work or run businesses in the informal economy, and face numerous difficulties including pay and promotion disparities, as well as obstacles in accessing information, technology and finance to expand their enterprises.

OUR WHY

To reduce household poverty levels, we need to increase access of women to income-earning activities to empower them economically. Gender equality is important. Communities, where opportunities for women are on par with men, have fewer child deaths, fewer conflicts, and better public services and health, data show. Research shows that where women-owned businesses thrive, the community wins

OBJECTIVES

1. Strengthen the capacity of established women entrepreneurs to start, run and grow sustainable businesses
2. Increasing the number of women-owned and women-led companies
3. To empower the young women entrepreneurs to be able to scale their ideas into multinational companies.
4. To provide a platform through which young women entrepreneurs can have access to investors and partners to help them build their businesses and create thousands of sustainable jobs for the youth.
5. To create a spirit of positive competitive growth and excellence between women entrepreneurs.
6. To widen the Interaction circle of women entrepreneurs with the corporate world, government, not-for-profit leaders for networking purposes.
7. To create a platform for marketing and advertising products and services by women entrepreneurs.

TARGET AUDIENCE

1. Women-led Startups
2. Investors & Venture Capitalists
3. Aspiring Women Entrepreneurs
4. Entrepreneurship Influencers
5. SHE AWARDS Alumni and past audience
6. Business communities, Entrepreneurship hubs, accelerators and incubators
7. Leaders in not-for-profit organizations and government interested in sustainable economic growth through programs that equip and empower the women