Support for female entrepreneurs is crucial to promote greater economic empowerment of women across Southeast Asia. This project continues the work from the “Supporting Women Entrepreneurs in Asia” project, which concluded in FY 2019 following the release of the “Gender Lens Incubation Acceleration Toolkit,” a new resource, developed with the Australian Government, which compiled the findings of pilot projects with intermediaries and previous research outcomes. This project has the aim of deepening the understanding of gender by entrepreneurship support organizations (ESOs) and investors so they can more effectively apply a gender lens to their work to bridge the demand and supply of capital and resources towards women-led and women-owned businesses at scale. Strengthening the capabilities of ESOs and investors also has the potential to deepen the support and networks available to women entrepreneurs and contribute to building a more inclusive entrepreneurial ecosystem that addresses the needs of women-led and women-owned small and growing businesses (SGBs) and startups in Southeast Asia.

Rina Komiya