Table of Contents
Introduction to IFC 2023 She Wins Africa Program
The She Wins Africa program is a program designed to assist women entrepreneurs across sub-Saharan Africa by offering training, mentorship, and networking opportunities that will help their startups succeed.
African women have the highest rate of entrepreneurial activity in the world at an estimated 24% and are more likely to start businesses than their counterparts in other regions of the world. However, several factors persistently hinder the potential of female founders and entrepreneurs in Africa. These include a lack of access to startup capital, a lack of access to start-up support ecosystems and networks that deliver capacity-building support and a lack of knowledge and expertise to implement gender-lens investing strategies among venture capital firms and funds.
The She Wins Africa program aims to address these challenges and improve opportunities for women-led startups to access financing.
The She Wins Africa program will:
- Provide investment readiness training and business skills capacity building, which will help women-led startups improve their chances of accessing finance.
- Provide capacity building for funds and Venture Capital on gender-lens investing to help accelerate investments in women-led startups and enterprises, including ten startup support organizations.
- Capacity building for accelerators and ESOs to support the incubation of early-stage startups and support the development of a strong pipeline of investible startups.
- Facilitate matchmaking and pitching events between female founders and investors to facilitate the flow of funds to women-owned businesses.
Eligibility Criteria
Prospective participants of the She Wins Africa Program must meet the following criteria:
- Applicants must be 21 years of age or older as of the date of application
- Applicants are required to be female
- Applicants must have a year and above in business
- The business headquarters must be in a sub-Saharan African country.
- The business industry should be agnostic, with technology as a central component.
- Previous participants in similar IFC programs are ineligible to apply.
- Applicants must be fluent in English and/or French.
- She Wins Africa participants must be available to attend online training sessions and travel to networking events during the next 12 months.
Benefits
- Intensive training from industry experts
- Mentorship and Networking opportunities
- IFC will only cover flight and hotel expenses for the duration of the program.
How to Apply
Interested applicants are advised to read the full details about the program on their official announcement page before proceeding to the application page. There is no official date announced for the closure of applications, but jump on this opportunity as soon as you can!
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