The State of Female Entrepreneurship in West Africa: 2025 Insights

Executive Summary

This research report examines the landscape of female entrepreneurship across West Africa, focusing on Ghana, Nigeria, and Côte d'Ivoire. Despite women representing over 50% of the self-employed workforce, they experience a 40% funding gap compared to male-headed counterparts.

The research details key barriers including structural land rights (limiting traditional bank collateral), financial literacy deficiencies, and social biases. It also identifies rapid mobile technology and fintech adoption as high-impact pathways for overcoming these historical limitations.

Key Policy Recommendations

Our research recommends that governments and financial institutions deploy non-collateralized credit options based on transactional cash flows rather than land deeds. Additionally, scaling targeted business incubators (such as SheThrives) that combine digital capacity building with community support has proven to reduce early-stage startup failure rates by 35%.