Africa Gender Innovation Lab

81 items available

Permanent URI for this collection

http://hdl.handle.net/10986/25446

The Gender Innovation Lab (GIL) conducts impact evaluations of development interventions in Sub-Saharan Africa, seeking to generate evidence on how to close the gender gap in earnings, productivity, assets and agency. The GIL team is currently working on over 50 impact evaluations in 21 countries with the aim of building an evidence base with lessons for the region.

Items in this collection

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4

Making It Easier for Women in Malawi to Formalize Their Firms and Access Financial Services

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-01-28) Campos, Francisco ; Goldstein, Markus ; McKenzie, David

The rate of informal firms is high in Sub-Saharan Africa, especially for those that are women-owned and in the poorest countries, despite a total of 107 business regulatory reforms recorded by Doing Business across 40 economies in the region. Through an experiment in Malawi, we established an effective and replicable design to offer informal firms support to formalize, costing much less than the typical private sector development intervention. The study shows that one of the primary barriers to registration for women-owned firms is transaction costs. When registration is madevirtually costless, an overwhelming number of women-owned firms (73 percent) choose to register. However, when offered the chance to engage in costless registration for taxes, almost no firms select to pursue this opt ion. Combining business registration with an information session at a bank including the offer of a business bank account leads to an increased use of formal financial services, and results in increases in women owned firms sales and profits of 28 percent and 20 percent respectively. On the other hand, business registration on its own is not as effective in improving access to financial services and does not result in enhanced sales and profits.
Making it Easier for Women in Malawi to Formalize Their Firms and Access Financial Services

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-03) Campos, Francisco ; Goldstein, Markus ; McKenzie, David

The global rate of informal firms is high, especially for those that are women-owned and in the poorest countries, despite 149 economies implementing 368 reforms to simplify the registration process in a recent ten-year period. Through an experiment in Malawi, the author established an effective and replicable design to offer informal firms support to formalize, costing much less than the typical private sector development intervention. What works in the short-term is combining business registration with an information session at a bank including the offer of a business bank account. This led to women entrepreneurs increasing usage of bank accounts for business-only purposes, financial record keeping, and access to other financial services including insurance. Informal firms are smaller and less productive than formal ones, and their informal status is often associated with a number of costs, including less access to finance. Although 75 percent of the countries included in the Doing Business project have adopted at least one reform making it easier to register a business since 2004, informality remains very prevalent, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. This may lead many to believe that entrepreneurs are not interested in registering their firms, and that if they could only be convinced to formalize it would lead to great benefits for their business.
Breaking the Metal Ceiling: Female Entrepreneurs Who Succeed in Male-Dominated Sectors in Uganda

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2014-01) Campos, Francisco ; Goldstein, Markus ; McGorman, Laura ; Munoz Boudet, Ana Maria ; Pimhidzai, Obert

Worldwide, female entrepreneurs tend to experience lower productivity and profit than their male peers. One reason for this is that women tend to be concentrated in less profitable businesses. This mixed methods study from Uganda investigates a range of factors that may hinder or help female entrepreneurs move into male-dominated sectors, where they are as successful as men, and significantly more successful than women who remain in traditionally female sectors. This analysis finds that information gaps about the relative profitability of male-dominated businesses play an important role, as do the types of role models influencing youth as they determine their career paths. Informational campaigns, as well as apprenticeship and mentorship programs, present potential policy options.
Gender Gaps at the Enterprise Level: Evidence from South Africa

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2011-09) Campos, Francisco

Female-owned small to medium businesses in the Western Cape Province in South Africa are less productive, generate lower revenues and have less employees than male-owned enterprises. In this brief, we use the baseline survey for an impact evaluation of a business development services program to identify why these differences exist and explore paths towards policy interventions to overcome them. Author conclude that the concentration of businesses in low performing sectors, the lack of commitment to the business, the intertwining of household and business responsibilities, and access to finance can be important barriers to the growth of women-headed enterprises. Author suggests targeted alternative interventions to address these constraints and recommend comparing their effectiveness through rigorous evaluations. Author argue that the gender differences identified in the performance of Small, Medium, and Micro Enterprises (SMMEs) in this Province of South Africa can be due to a combination of: 1) the concentration of women-entrepreneurs in a small number of low-performing sectors, 2) firms being seen by entrepreneurs as an interim solution, 3) the intertwining of household and enterprise money, and 4) credit constraints.