Women’s entrepreneurship in Mali: Challenges and prospects

Abstract

Today access to employment in the public services in Mali constitutes a major challenge for the active population, in particular women. This constraint results in a dominance of informal employment. This type of employment exists in all institutional sectors and in all regions and regardless of background and sex. Female entrepreneurship has taken on increasing importance for decades in most industrialized countries but also in developing countries with specific characteristics (micro-enterprises). International organizations see women's entrepreneurship as an important means of combating poverty and promoting the women’s development. It is in this context that the article discusses the issues and in order to decide the future prospects of this entrepreneurship on the labor market. In a theoretical context, without modeling aspect, the methodological research focuses on the documentary review, the exploration of available data produced by the statistical information structures of public administrations in Mali. The analyzes of these data are contrasted with the various socio-demographic determinants. The results showed that female entrepreneurship is topical in Mali through different forms of organizations, especially in the informal sector in small businesses such as agribusiness. It emerges from these results that the difficulties or constraints are multiple, for which support measures are requested by women entrepreneurs.

Classification JEL : J64

Paper type : Empirical Research