Building More Inclusive Ecosystems

Every March, International Women’s Month creates an opportunity to recognize women’s contributions and take stock of the work that remains. In entrepreneurship ecosystems across emerging markets, that work is still urgent.

Women entrepreneurs are driving innovation, creating jobs, and strengthening community resilience. Yet structural barriers continue to limit their growth. Restricted access to finance, weaker professional networks, and persistent bias in male-dominated sectors still shape the realities many founders face. Addressing those constraints requires more than celebrating individual success stories. It requires building ecosystems that work better for women-led businesses.

At ANDE, we believe strong ecosystems are built intentionally. Through research, partnerships, and collaboration across our global network, we work to strengthen the systems and institutions that support women-led small and growing businesses (SGBs). The goal is not only inclusion, but better conditions for entrepreneurs to grow, create jobs, and contribute to stronger local economies.

Why supporting women entrepreneurs matters

SGBs are a critical engine of inclusive economic growth. When women lead these businesses, the benefits often extend beyond the enterprise itself. In many contexts, women entrepreneurs reinvest in households and communities, helping strengthen economic resilience at the local level.

At the same time, women remain underrepresented across many sectors with strong growth potential, including climate and energy. They also continue to face barriers to capital, mentorship, market access, and business support needed to scale.

Closing those gaps is not only a question of fairness. It is also a practical pathway to unlocking innovation, expanding opportunity, and advancing climate resilience and sustainable development.

Building evidence for more inclusive ecosystems

If the sector wants better outcomes for women entrepreneurs, it needs better evidence on what works. That is why ANDE invests in applied research that can help enterprise support organizations (ESOs), investors, funders, and policymakers make better decisions.

One important example is ANDE’s partnership with Canada’s IDRC (International Development Research Centre (IDRC), which focuses on generating evidence around women-led enterprises in emerging markets. Together with partners including 2X Global, ANDE has supported research on women entrepreneurs in sectors such as clean energy.

These initiatives support research teams across Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean to identify the barriers women entrepreneurs face and test practical responses that ecosystem actors can adopt. Each team brings together academic and practitioner perspectives so that the findings are not only rigorous, but usable.

Early insights point to several persistent challenges:

• Limited access to finance and investment

• Smaller professional networks and fewer partnership opportunities

• Cultural and institutional barriers in male-dominated sectors

• Limited access to mentorship, training, and flexible support services

These barriers are interconnected. Addressing them requires action across the ecosystem, from funders and accelerators to policymakers, researchers, and investors.

Women entrepreneurs and the clean energy transition

The transition to clean energy offers a major opportunity to expand women’s participation in high-growth sectors. But that opportunity is not automatic. Without intentional ecosystem design, women risk being excluded from parts of the emerging green economy.

Through the ANDE-IDRC partnership, research teams across Africa and Latin America are examining how the clean energy ecosystem can become more inclusive. Projects include work on women-led solar enterprises in South Africa, as well as efforts to strengthen women’s participation in briquette production and renewable energy cooperatives in other regions.

The value of this work is not limited to research outputs. These initiatives are also generating practical tools, including gender-responsive support frameworks and training models that ESOs can use to better serve women-led businesses.

The objective is clear: women entrepreneurs should not be treated as peripheral participants in the clean energy transition. They should be recognized and supported as leaders shaping its future.

A global network with local relevance

ANDE’s work on gender-inclusive entrepreneurship spans regions and sectors. Across Africa, Asia, and Latin America, our network of more than 200 members helps strengthen the systems that support entrepreneurs. These members include accelerators, investors, research institutions, and development organizations working to improve access to the finance, knowledge, and partnerships SGBs need to grow.

Through convenings, research partnerships, and capacity-building efforts, ANDE helps elevate evidence, strengthen practice, and connect ecosystem actors around practical solutions. That is how stronger support systems are built: not through isolated interventions, but through coordinated action across the field.

Moving from recognition to action

International Women’s Month is an important moment for recognition. But recognition alone does not change systems.

Lasting progress requires sustained investment in the institutions, relationships, and evidence that help women entrepreneurs succeed. By supporting research, strengthening enterprise support organizations, and mobilizing a global network around practical solutions, ANDE is working to help more women-led businesses access the opportunities they need to grow.

Because when women entrepreneurs grow, ecosystems work better—and the gains reach far beyond any single business.