Increasing Women Entrepreneurship in Mali

In July 2020, NABC officially launched a new programme focused on increasing women entrepreneurship in Mali, an initiative of the INCLUDE Knowledge Platform. Together with the Mali Investment Promotion Agency (API Mali) and the IHEM Institute for Advanced Studies in Management (Institut des Hautes Etudes de Management), NABC will generate evidence and insights on barriers and solutions to women entrepreneurship, and develop ideas and tools for enhancing the environment for women entrepreneurship in Mali.

Although the government of Mali has initiated policies and ratified international treaties and conventions relevant to women empowerment, barriers to women entrepreneurship are yet to be adequately addressed. Further, due to limited evidence of the specific barriers and isolated implementation of interventions to address these barriers, it is difficult to evaluate challenges with current policies and learn from them. The aim of this APD is to create a dialogue platform for researchers, practitioners and other actors in Mali involved in the women entrepreneurship ecosystem.

Objectives

Establish a network of stakeholders on women entrepreneurship Mali.
Identify, map and evaluate policies and programmes on women entrepreneurship.
Enhance the understanding of obstacles that different women face in entrepreneurship.
Provide reliable research evidence on women entrepreneurship in Mali.
Accelerate the reach and uptake of best practices including national-level policy making.
Use rigorous evidence inform the formulation and implementation of new policies.
Encourage realignment of existing policies and programmes on women entrepreneurship.