One in three women in Latin America wants to start a business, according to a GEM report

One third of the women of Latin America wants to start and set up her own business, but is having difficulties obtaining financing, according to data from the latest Female Entrepreneurship report from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM), considered the most prestigious and extensive study on the state of entrepreneurship worldwide.

Latin America and the Caribbean is the most entrepreneurial region in the world, with a 33% of women with entrepreneurial intentions and a twenty-one% in business creation rate by women, according to the same study.

Furthermore, the 40% Of these businesses have high potential for innovation and business development programs, but encounter barriers such as the digital and financial divide, the report adds.

Latin American women want to be entrepreneurs, despite being more affected than men in digital literacy and access to financing, advice or time to implement small ventures or the creation of companies, indicate studies carried out by the World Bank (WB) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).

Financing problems

Latin America and the Caribbean have important challenges ahead to make it easier for women to launch or create businesses, since, according to a statement from the company Visa, around 70% of women-owned medium and small businesses have problems accessing financing.

In this context, and coinciding with International Women’s Month, Visa has announced that it is promoting initiatives to prioritize equitable financing and the provision of resources to medium and small companies led by women.

In fact, the Visa Foundation announced last year during the APEC summit the granting of one hundred million dollars to support micro and small businesses for five years in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation countries, including Peru and Mexico.

And so it is that a Visa Foundation project with Pro Mujer – an NGO created in 1990 in Bolivia that operates in six countries in the region – managed to support microbusinesses and small businesses led by women in Latin America with three million dollars last year.

“Female entrepreneurship has the potential to be transformative for communities and economies, and help build prosperous societies,” says Maribel Diz, senior vice president and head of Human Resources at Visa Latin America and the Caribbean.

In order to help empower women in the fields of science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics (STEAM), Visa has also promoted initiatives with organizations such as Geek Girls Latam, Laboratoria, the BécALAS program of Mexico, the Organization for the Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the NiñaSTEM initiative in Colombia, and Girls in Tech in the Dominican Republic.

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