Entrepreneurship as a catalyst for empowering young women in the global South

During the past 25 years, the number of girls attending school in the global South (low-income countries) has doubled (#HerEducationOurFuture: fact sheet on girls' education, UNESCO). This is good news. At the same timegirls cannot always pursue higher studies and too often they end up at their homes or marry and become a housewife. In addition, girls and women have to comply with social norms in everyday life, and have disproportionately more household and caring duties assigned to them than their male partners. Furthermore, they face more discrimination in the public sphere, leaving them with less opportunities to invest in their own activities and to contribute to the economic, social and political development of their society. Hence, this project will investigate how entrepreneurial behaviors and skills can leverage empowerment of young women (18-25 years) in the global South and shape the sustainable development of the community to which they belong.

Entrepreneurship is not necessarily about building and managing your own business, although that is certainly a possibility. But it is also about developing, strengthening and practicing entrepreneurial skills on a personal and relational level. Therefore, this project (1) integrates the experiences of different projects focused on entrepreneurship of young women in the global South and in Belgium (such as the #SheDIDIT project), and translates them into 'lessons learned'. These insights form the basis for (2) a pilot project in collaboration with Project Soar in Morocco. Project Soar mainly works on empowering teenage girls through education. With this pilot project, Project Soar wants to guide young women while they enter the labor market, by encouraging their entrepreneurial spirit. (3) Finally, a new learning network on female entrepreneurship in the global South will be launched, where we aim for a broad participation from civil society and knowledge institutions.