The African Women’s Entrepreneurship
Program is a people-to-people exchange that connects women and enhances
their ability to be key economic drivers in communities and countries
worldwide.
Building
on the fact that women are drivers of economic growth and prosperity,
the International Visitor Leadership Program at the U.S. Department of
State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs brought 40 women
entrepreneurs from 36 African nations to the United States for the
second African Women’s Entrepreneurship Exchange Program (AWEP).
For
three weeks, the African women entrepreneurs were provided professional
development training and networking opportunities with American
counterparts from civil society, corporations, industry associations,
non-profit organizations, and business alliances. The people-to-people
exchange followed the 2011 African Women’s Entrepreneurship Program
Conference, which was held in Lusaka, Zambia in June, alongside the 2011
African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) Forum.
Click here
for more information on the conference. AWEP is a Department of State
partnership among the Secretary’s Office of Global Women’s Issues, the
Bureau of African Affairs, and the Bureau of Economic, Energy, and
Business Affairs.
Since its inception in 2010, the African Women’s
Entrepreneurship Program has empowered African business owners and
provided them the tools to: export to the United States under the terms
of AGOA; increase their export capacities; strengthen public-private
partnerships to reinforce program goals; and to establish or expand
business relationships with U.S. partners. Following the 2010 program,
ExxonMobil funded two follow-on trainings in Africa in partnership with
Vital Voices. Additionally, program alumnae have established local
chapters in several countries that strengthen economic ties and allow
them to stay connected.
Overall, this initiative seeks to empower African women entrepreneurs by:
- Expanding opportunities for exports and U.S. investment in sub-Saharan Africa under AGOA;
- Recognizing and expanding the roles women play as advocates for strengthening national business climates for all women; and
- Instituting follow-up programs so that participants, in their role as community leaders, can pass on what they learn.
The
women participating in this current program hail from Angola, Benin,
Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Comoros, the
Democratic Republic of Congo, Cote d’Ivoire, Djibouti, Ethiopia, the
Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Mali,
Mauritania, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Sao Tome and
Principe, Senegal, South Africa, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo,
Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
Now in its 70
th year, the
International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) is the U.S. Department
of State’s premier professional exchange program, connecting current and
emerging foreign leaders with their American counterparts through
short-term programs to build mutual understanding on foreign policy
issues. Nearly 200,000 distinguished individuals have participated in
the program, including more than 320 current and former chiefs of state
and heads of government, and thousands of leaders from the public and
private sectors. More information on this program and IVLP can be found
on
http://exchanges.state.gov/ivlp.
