Encouraging
Entrepreneurship of Women in Côte d’Ivoire

Entrepreneurship can strengthen the ability of a country, a region or a place to adapt to changing technologies and values on the market by renewing its economic actors. This is the summary of the “Revue de l’Entrepreneuriat et de l’Innovation en Côte d'Ivoire” published in 2021. Entrepreneurship also creates jobs, stimulates economic growth and can improve social conditions through innovative solutions.

Although women and youth represent more than 60 per cent of the workforce in Côte d’Ivoire, these two groups face more obstacles than men when it comes to starting a business. According to the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), rural development and gender equality are key elements of strategies to reduce poverty, generate income, create jobs and encourage truly sustainable development.

It is against this backdrop that Invest for Jobs supports CARE International in Côte d’Ivoire with its programme to improve the entrepreneurial capacities of women and youth in rural areas. The programme aims to offer young people and women the opportunity to set up income-generating activities. When project beneficiaries open a business, they will also receive further support to register as formalised companies. As the owner of a formal company, they obtain the status of entrepreneur, which will allow them to be linked to banking structures and receive funding to grow their companies more easily.

CARE International Côte d'Ivoire is a non-governmental organisation dedicated to overcoming poverty and achieving social justice through projects that empower women, foster social cohesion and provide clean water. To encourage financial planning and economic activities in rural areas, CARE has built up a network of more than 8000 village savings and loan associations (VSLAs) in Côte d'Ivoire. VSLAs are informal and self-managed community-based groups that provide their members with access to basic financial services. Their implementation is a direct response to the unmet need for financial services for many people in remote and rural areas.

With the support of Invest for Jobs, 100 VSLAs in the Méagui and Touih areas are targeted. CARE International Côte d’Ivoire offers capacity building sessions on entrepreneurial and financial topics to these VSLAs members during a 6 months-long training programme. Participants are also sensitised to the formalisation of individual businesses in rural areas.

Invest for Jobs supports CARE International Côte d'Ivoire by subsidising the training of these future entrepreneurs. Within this project, CARE is also partnering with Ecobank, a transnational bank present in 36 countries in West, Central and East Africa. By teaming up with Ecobank, the project is ensuring that these young rural entrepreneurs – after their training – can access more credit. Ecobank´s mission is to inform and train CARE's team on the Ellever programme so that VLSA members can benefit from it. This programme for women-owned businesses, already established in 33 African countries, is designed to enable women to realise their potential by providing them with customised financial solutions and value-added services. The SEPHIS Foundation, an Ivorian NGO and Ecobank's partner specifically for the Ellever programme, is responsible for designing the training modules that will introduce training participants to the opportunities of Ellever.

As such, the project focuses on two key areas of expertise: training VSLAs to become future entrepreneurs in order to stimulate rural development and enabling them to access more credit from Ecobank.

As of December 2024, the project has created 1,389 new good jobs and more than 515 individuals have seen their working conditions improve. Central to these improvements are the formalisation of economic activities and improved access to finance.

1,335 members from the 100 selected VSLAs had attained entrepreneur status and opened bank accounts with Ecobank. This crucial milestone marks their progress towards prosperity and the creation of sustainable jobs.

To further enhance this successful partnership, a new collaboration with CARE International was launched in early January 2024. This partnership aims to provide additional support to 300 new VSLAs in Côte d'Ivoire.

This project is supported by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH within the framework of the Special Initiative "Decent Work for a Just Transition" of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).