Women's Entrepreneurship in the Americas

The Women's Entrepreneurship in the Americas (WEAmericas) is a program designed to support economic development around the world and increase female economic participation by helping women overcome barriers to starting and growing businesses.

Exchanges and partnerships are an essential part of any entrepreneurial journey. In the WEAmericas exchange through the International Visitor Leadership Program, women entrepreneurs are able to learn, gain new skills, find mentors and more.

"In the WEAmericas program, we have learned quite a lot. We've gotten to know the experiences of other women, and also tools that can help women in these small and medium-sized enterprises to draw out their business plans, create their market strategies and start their marketing; among other tools that they have given us; and that I'm sure they will continue giving to us. So the simple access to that is a great step for us," says Marisol Del Carmen Brooks Zelaya, a WEAmericas gradauate from Nicaragua.

WeAmericas, state department helps women from across the Americas network and access opportunities.

"Essentially, women need training and access to credit, and women as a gender need to be taken into consideration as a productive segment of the market, says Maria De Los Angeles Torres Suarez, an alumna from Uruguay. "We need to strengthen their access to markets. Information generates opportunities, and training allows them to manage and develop their entrepreneurship in a way that's viable and successful."

Maria De Los Angeles Torres Suarez, a particpant and graduate from Uruguay, agarees. "I'm going to try to share this with other women, so that other women can also participate in this program, and therefore, we can have a multiplier effect," she says. "We can obtain better results and achieve more sustainable development."

For more about how WEAmerica supports opportunities for women in Latin America through education and skills development programs, visit the WEAmericas Initiative.

Gayle Tzemach Lemmon: Women entrepreneurs, example not exception

Journalist and author Gayle Tzemach Lemmon set out to write about entrepreneurs who were being overlooked, particularly in places that had seen conflict. What she found was women—in almost every situation imaginable—starting businesses, helping to raise up others and their communities, growing and thriving. Lemmon says it's time we stopped thinking of women entrepreneurs as exceptions and instead look to them as examples--and time we started treating them like the serious business owners they are.

We must talk about women if we're going to discuss jobs and entrepreneurs, particularly in areas with conflict, Lemmon says, because they often are the majority of the population. In the immediate aftermath of the Rwandan genocide, for example, the remaining population was 77 percent women.

Lemmon also shares stories from a few incredible women she met, from the Afghan woman who risked everything to start an entrepreneurship consultancy business (her third business) to the Bosnian businesswoman who opened a new factory on former war front lines in Sarajevo—supporting a large family of her own, employing mostly women and allowing families to send both sons and daughters to school.

Still, Lemmon continues to encounter people who are surprised to find successful women in business. While microfinance is often proposed as a tool to help women, we need to do more, Lemmon says.

"We aim low and we think small when it comes to women," she says. "Microfinance is an incredibly powerful tool that leads to self sufficiency and self respect. But we must move beyond micro hopes and micro ambitions for women, because they have so much greater hopes for themselves."

Fortunately, she points out, we already have many proven strategies: Cash-flow loans based on income rather than asset, loans that use secure contracts instead of collateral and crowdsourcing loans could all help support women in business. The trick, Lemmon says, is thinking about women as the serious players they already are.

"How wonderful would it be if we were willing to replace all our lofty words with our wallets?" she asked. "This is about global growth and global employment. It is about how we invest, and it's about how we see women. And women can no longer be both half the population and a special-interest group."

Lemmon was inspired young, and remains driven, by lessons passed down from the strong, resilient women in her own life; who taught her to aim high and take the leap. If women were celebrated worldwide as business owners and jobmakers, they would be similarly inspired—and the more money is invested to support them, the more women and their communities will thrive.

"(This will) make a difference not just for women, but for a global economy that desperately needs their contributions," Lemmon says.

Gayle Tzemach Lemmon is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and the author of New York Times best sellers "The Dressmaker of Khair Khana" and "Ashley's War." Visit her website, follow her on Twitter or like her on Facebook to learn more about her work and the issues she studies.