DigiFemmes is a holistic technical assistance program providing women entrepreneurs in Cote d’Ivoire with the resources they need to run and grow successful businesses by leveraging digital and data skills to make their companies more efficient and profitable.

Collocated in existing coworking spaces in Abidjan and San Pedro, the program will provide participants with collaborative workspaces, reliable internet connection and a lively community. Two different participation tracks will be open to women who have already founded a small to medium-size business (W-SMEs) as well as women looking to gain additional data and digital skills (N-SMEs). Each track will run once a year for an initial 3 year period, with the potential to continue on a rolling basis.

To increase the impact of the program, data and leadership trainings will be held for additional existing W-SMEs in Abidjan, San Pedro, Yamoussoukro, Bouaké, Daloa and Gagnoa. These will be coupled with events in these same cities for governments, corporations, investors, and Entrepreneurial Support Organizations focusing on the topic of gender equality.

There is increasing evidence that gender equality is a vital catalyst for economic growth. The United Nations published a report in 2016 demonstrating that the lower the score of a country on gender inequality, the faster it would grow economically. This was later reinforced by the International Monetary Fund which described the reduction of gender inequality as imperative to reaching better outcomes in terms of economic and social development (International Monetary Fund, 2018). While the economic benefits of empowering women are commonly accepted, the numbers confirm that we are lagging behind.

In Ivory Coast, the current participation of women in the SME sector is low, with only 24% of Ivorian ventures being currently women-led (WorldBank, 2016). Women entrepreneurs face multiple challenges when it comes to launching and growing their business, and principally lack access to training and a network of support within an enabling environment. DigiFemmes aims to address the data & digital skills gap by implementing a highly inclusive model that ultimately yields more sustainable WSMEs, more employable Ivorian women and a more inclusive innovation ecosystem. The program follows a system thinking approach and works with:

Existing W-SMEs on addressing their data and digital skills needs to grow their businesses

New W-SMEs on gaining the digital skills and launching and validating their businesses and with ecosystem stakeholders such as governments, investors and entrepreneurship support organizations to create a more supportive environment for skill development in female founders.