{"id":1373,"date":"2023-02-22T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-02-22T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.afrilabs.com\/index.php\/2023\/02\/22\/afrilabs-with-support-from-visa-foundation-launches-the-revup-women-initiative-to-empower-early-stage-women-led-startups-in-africa\/"},"modified":"2023-08-26T01:27:22","modified_gmt":"2023-08-26T01:27:22","slug":"afrilabs-with-support-from-visa-foundation-launches-the-revup-women-initiative-to-empower-early-stage-women-led-startups-in-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.afrilabs.com\/index.php\/2023\/02\/22\/afrilabs-with-support-from-visa-foundation-launches-the-revup-women-initiative-to-empower-early-stage-women-led-startups-in-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"AfriLabs with support from Visa Foundation launches the RevUp Women Initiative to empower early stage women-led startups in Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/afrilabs.com\/\">AfriLabs<\/a>, in collaboration with the <a href=\"http:\/\/visafoundation.org\">Visa Foundation<\/a> launched the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.revupwomen.com\">RevUp Women Initiative<\/a> on February 21, 2023, in Lagos, Nigeria. The soft launch event had in attendance a cross-section of high level stakeholders in Africa\u2019s innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem.<\/p>\n<p>The RevUp Women Initiative is aligned with AfriLabs&#8217; inclusion strategy and will offer enterprise development intervention to early-stage women-led African startups and SMEs. The initiative is designed to accelerate women-led businesses into profitable and sustainable ventures that can create jobs on the continent, and the first cohort of beneficiaries will be selected from 5 cities across Nigeria, Kenya, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo and South Africa.<\/p>\n<p>The initiative&nbsp; will provide capacity-building training and mentoring to 500 women business owners during the pilot stage. Additionally, 10 women business owners will be selected to receive a $10,000 investment each through the <a href=\"https:\/\/catalytic-africa.com\/\">Catalytic Africa <\/a>matching fund to grow their businesses.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/openknowledge.worldbank.org\/bitstream\/handle\/10986\/31421\/135420-ProfitingfromParityFullReport.pdf\">Research by the World Bank<\/a> shows that women make up 58% of Africa\u2019s self-employed population and are more likely to become entrepreneurs than men. Yet, according to data from the <a href=\"https:\/\/online.flippingbook.com\/view\/574977573\/\">AfriLabs &#8211; Briter Bridges Innovation Ecosystem Report<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/afrilabs.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/NEEDS-ASSESSMENT-REPORT.pdf\">AfriLabs Needs Assessment report<\/a>, women-led businesses in Africa continue to face unique challenges that see them perform poorly compared to men-led enterprises. The challenges range from social issues such as challenging social expectations, building a support network, balancing work and family life, and coping with the fear of failure to business-related issues like limited access to markets, finance, technology and network. The fact remains that women-led enterprises in Africa are not receiving enough support, hence the need for this initiative.<\/p>\n<p><b>Vision<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Improving Africa\u2019s economy by empowering women-led and women-owned enterprises<\/p>\n<p><b>Project\u2019s activities<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Leveraging AfriLabs hubs network in 52 African countries to undertake the following:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li aria-level=\"1\">Enterprise development training<\/li>\n<li aria-level=\"1\">Mentorship through mentorship networks<\/li>\n<li aria-level=\"1\">Peer-to-peer learning workshops<\/li>\n<li aria-level=\"1\">Funding through Catalytic Africa<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Projected impact<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li aria-level=\"1\">Sensitise and mobilise stakeholders to create equal growth opportunities for women-led startups and SMEs through RevUp Women Initiative, leading to poverty eradication and inclusive economic growth.<\/li>\n<li aria-level=\"1\">Additional funding opportunities for women-led startups and SMEs on the continent<\/li>\n<li aria-level=\"1\">A profound increase in investable and scalable women-led startups and SMEs in Africa.<\/li>\n<li aria-level=\"1\">More jobs are created by African women-led startups and SMEs.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Projected impact numbers by 2026 (after the pilot phase)<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li aria-level=\"1\">50,000 women-led enterprises supported<\/li>\n<li aria-level=\"1\">$10 million worth of funding awarded<\/li>\n<li aria-level=\"1\">$100 million worth of investment unlocked through investors<\/li>\n<li aria-level=\"1\">At least 152,000 jobs will be created in the countries where the initiative is implemented.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The initiative will commence its call for applications on February 27, 2023. Interested parties can apply or partner with the initiative through the project&#8217;s website &#8211; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.revupwomen.com\">www.revupwomen.com<\/a>. The initiative is also open to partnerships from stakeholders who share the vision for African women in the business sphere. These include partnerships in the areas of: additional funding through Catalytic Africa; funding additional countries\/cities to implement the program, and\/or funding the next cohort of the program. There are also opportunities to join the initiative in a non-funding capacity, such as partnering with AfriLabs to provide technical support to the participants (mentoring, coaching, digital tools) and providing visibility for the initiative through communication channels.<\/p>\n<p>Media contact:<\/p>\n<p>Ajuma Abah (ajuma@afrilabs.com)<\/p>\n<p>PR &amp; Communications Manager, AfriLabs<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AfriLabs, in collaboration with the Visa Foundation launched the RevUp Women Initiative on February 21, 2023, in Lagos, Nigeria. The soft launch event had in attendance a cross-section of high [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1924,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":[],"_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.afrilabs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1373"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.afrilabs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.afrilabs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.afrilabs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.afrilabs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1373"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/new.afrilabs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1373\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1929,"href":"https:\/\/new.afrilabs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1373\/revisions\/1929"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.afrilabs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.afrilabs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.afrilabs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.afrilabs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}