Can women entrepreneurs be more common in the Middle East than in Silicon Valley? Columnist Doug Sacks (pictured) ponders the question.
Yasmin Elayat, an Egyptian-American born and raised in Silicon Valley says yes. She feels “the ecosystem of investors, business mentors and other entrepreneurs in Egypt and the Middle East was more supportive than those in the U.S. or Europe…”
While a study by Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) suggested women in MENA were the least likely in the world to start a business, the study did not include data from startup powerhouses Jordan, Lebanon, the UAE and Qatar (Israel was included separately).
In Jordan, the number of female-led startups is closer to 33 per cent, near the global average of 37 per cent, and in Egypt, about half of the businesses invested in so far involved mixed-gender teams. The number of women entrepreneurs throughout the region probably lies somewhere in between, at about 15-20 per cent. Compare this with the GEM study findings that 10 per cent of the US adult female population and 5 per cent in Europe was involved in entrepreneurial activity in 2012.
While the challenges faced by women entrepreneurs in the Middle East are vast, there are reasons for their rise in the Middle East:
Multiple business incubators and accelerators have opened in major cities across the region in the last three years, along with organisations and competitions specifically targeting women.
The World Bank says more women in the Middle East now attend university than men.
Girls throughout the Arab region are funneled into the hard-to-enter university science courses because of better high school grades than boys.
The number of women-led startup businesses could flourish further because the internet enables highly educated women to start a home-based business if, as in Saudi Arabia, her family might object if she went outside to work.
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Doug Sacks is International Business Development, Focus USA. Read his blog, here.
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