{"id":28083,"date":"2025-09-24T14:29:38","date_gmt":"2025-09-24T13:29:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tonyelumelufoundation.org\/?p=28083"},"modified":"2025-09-24T14:37:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-24T13:37:07","slug":"the-gendered-roi-measuring-the-economic-return-on-investing-in-women-founders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tonyelumelufoundation.org\/pt\/articles\/the-gendered-roi-measuring-the-economic-return-on-investing-in-women-founders","title":{"rendered":"O ROI de g\u00e9nero Medir o retorno econ\u00f3mico do investimento em mulheres fundadoras"},"content":{"rendered":"

For decades, investing in women has been framed as philanthropy, a moral gesture, a soft quota, an act of equity. In Africa today, the evidence tells a sharper story: investing in women founders is not charity, it is strategy. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When women receive capital, they generate more jobs per dollar, reinvest more in households, and build more resilient businesses. The real question is no longer <\/span>why<\/span><\/i> invest in women, but <\/span>why would any rational economy not?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

The Investing in Young Businesses in African Women Entrepreneurship for Africa (IYBA-WE4A) programme, spearheaded in partnership with the European Union, the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS), and implemented by the German Development Agency (GIZ) and the Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF), provides one of the clearest test cases to date. By combining seed capital, capacity building, and digital learning through TEFConnect, IYBA-WE4A has channeled millions of dollars into women-led businesses across the continent. The results are no longer anecdotal. They point to an investable thesis: gender lens entrepreneurship delivers measurable, outsized returns not only for women, but for labour markets and national economies.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Framing Investment in Women as an Economic Imperative<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Too often, investment in women entrepreneurs is justified in the language of equity or moral duty. While justice matters, the economic evidence is stronger still. Global studies from the IMF and McKinsey have consistently shown that narrowing gender gaps in labour force participation could add trillions to global GDP. Yet these figures often remain abstract, detached from the lived realities of African markets where informality is high, finance is scarce, and education systems are misaligned with demand.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

IYBA-WE4A grounds this global debate in empirical reality. In 2021, over 798 African women-led enterprises received USD $3.99 million in grant funding under the programme. Each beneficiary received $5,000 in non-refundable seed capital, accompanied by capacity-building training, mentoring, and in some cases follow-on catalytic investments of up to \u20ac50,000 for high-growth firms. <\/span>These grants, though not vast by macroeconomic standards, have yielded disproportionate impact creating jobs, expanding revenues, and building market linkages across the continent.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Entrepreneurship as Human Capital Policy<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Tony Elumelu Foundation has long argued that entrepreneurship is not peripheral to Africa\u2019s labour markets; it is the labour market.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Women have been central to the TEF story. 46% of all TEF beneficiaries are women, and within the IYBA-WE4A programme specifically, the figure is 100%. Our data shows that each TEF beneficiary with an active business creates an average of 13 jobs, and that employees in these firms earn three times the national per-capita income. Over half of their workforce are women and youth. Profits average 22 times national income per capita, and 64% of these businesses support other SMEs as suppliers and vendors.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

These are not peripheral gains. They illustrate entrepreneurship as a system of human capital formation: every grant dollar is simultaneously training a founder, formalising jobs, raising wages, and building domestic supply chains.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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The WE4A Multiplier<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The outcomes of WE4A demonstrate how seed capital, when targeted at women founders, multiplies across multiple dimensions:<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n