Women entrepreneurs and economic bounce back

With the global economy now reeling from the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, and many countries now entering difficult periods of recession, attention is turning to small businesses as ways of boosting local economic growth. There is a recognition that entrepreneurs, and particularly women entrepreneurs, are key to keeping local communities going. They create jobs for local people, they introduce new products, services and technology solutions into local markets, and they support local needs. To see the impact that women entrepreneurs make in tough economic times like these, you only have to look back at their role as big job creators and stabilizers of the economy following the 2008-2009 Great Recession. For example in the US, women-led businesses added around 1.8 million jobs between  2007-12. Given the critical role played by entrepreneurship in fueling economic growth, there is an even greater need for big corporates and governments to provide more access to market opportunities for women entrepreneurs, providing them with the opportunity to both survive and thrive during this time. Investors also need to deploy more capital to support women-owned businesses to aid their future growth, as the world emerges from the Covid-19 recession. Given that women-led businesses in a post-recession environment have been shown to create significant numbers of new jobs, supporting them in these impact driven ways just makes sense.