Closing the Entrepreneurship Gap

Between 2016 and 2021, 15 out of the 26 OECD countries saw the gender gap among entrepreneurs close. But much of that progress was undone by the COVID-19 pandemic which had an outsized impact on women-operated businesses.

As half of the world’s population, closing this gap and empowering women can play a key role in boosting the economy and uplifting many out of poverty.

According to a 2022 World Bank Report women continue to face challenges, from structural and legal barriers to normative stereotypes around gender and education, that inhabit their ability to participate in trade. As many as 288 million to 433 million jobs worldwide could be created by closing the disparity between men and women entrepreneurs worldwide

That’s why the UPS Foundation launched the Women Exporters Program (WEP) to help address the disparity in education and workforce participation between men and women by providing targeted assistance to women-owned small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) worldwide.

Small Business Is the Cornerstone of Global Economy

As part of its commitment to advancing global women’s economic empowerment, the UPS Foundation works with government agencies—from the U.S. State Department, the United Nations, and the World Trade Organization—and other non-governmental organizations stakeholders in implementing the UPS Women’s Exporters Program (WEP) to help address the gender disparity in education and workforce.

The program assists women-owned small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) worldwide navigate the international trade export process, expand business reach, grow revenues, and hire and invest in their families and local communities.

To help women overcome those challenges, WEP provides education access through webinars and training on international trade subjects, such as skills to build skills in e-commerce and digital trade, access to financing, warehousing, logistics and packaging, and instructions for tariff and trade regulations.

Impact

Since its inception, the UPS Women Exporters Program has trained over 110,000 women and small business owners to grow their businesses worldwide.

In Latin America, WEP has trained more than 4,500 women and SMBs. In Turkey, 15,000 women and small business owners have been trained, and in Vietnam, 700 women underwent the training, which led to an estimated $2.3 million in trade generation. The program also enabled US$382 million in trade and investment opportunities.

The private and public partnerships also aim to overcome barriers to free trade and identify suitable channels for export to the United States. The women trained in Ecuador through the program, for example, have expressed a strong interest and desire to export products to the United States. The WEP training allowed the participants to scale their businesses and promote economic growth in local communities.

To ensure the success and growth of the program, UPS surveyed small and medium-sized business programs. The finding suggested that there was an equity shift. In the last year, women opened more businesses than men. And women-owned businesses tend to have more women in management roles. In Indonesia, 73% of female-led firms registered positive revenue growth, up considerably from 56% in 2020.

The survey also indicated that female-led small and medium-sized businesses have prioritized digitizing operations and sales over the last three years to grow their business. SMBs with an online and multimarket presence had much stronger revenue growth in the last year than those that did not.