Finding time away from building a new business is never easy, but Ngozi Okoli-Owube gladly set aside her daily schedule earlier this year to go back to school to learn marketing, accounting and managerial skills she had never had the time to master. þþFor five months, Ms. Okoli-Owube, 31, alternated her work establishing a preschool for learning-disabled children in Lagos, Nigeria, with weeklong stints at the Lagos Business School, joining a class of two dozen women to earn a certificate in entrepreneurial management. þþ“I have a university degree, but I did not have the training in how to run a business,” said Ms. Okoli-Owube, who had been struggling to get enough students to enroll at her “Start Right” school. “I have to learn to keep the books, how to market and to get advice from women who’ve come out the other side.” þþWhen she saw a local newspaper advertisement last spring for 10,000 Women, a global entrepreneurship program run by Goldman Sachs, she and about 100 other women jumped at the chance to apply. þþThe welfare of girls and women has long been on the agenda of international agencies. The World Bank, for example, announced steps earlier this year to increase support for women entrepreneurs by channeling some $100 million in commercial credit lines to them by 2012. þþBut corporations have also begun to take their economic power more seriously, especially in emerging markets. þþMany corporate programs employ microloans, grants or gifts to promote business education. Goldman decided to take a different approach after its research showed that per-capita income in Brazil, China, India, Russia and other emerging markets could rise by as much as 14 percent if women had better management and entrepreneurial skills. þþ“It’s not only philanthropy they’re after,” said Geeta Rao Gupta, president of the International Center for Research on Women. Goldman “had the idea that investment in women means a return on the gross national product of the country, and on household income.”þþThe company set aside $100 million over five years to bring business education to 10,000 qualified women business owners in developing countries, a commitment that remains unchanged despite banking industry turmoil. þþMs. Rao Gupta said the long-term view that Goldman and others were taking in emerging markets might help form a new economic stratum in societies where women’s participation in business traditionally had been restricted. Laws and customs in some countries, for example, bar women from opening bank accounts or require a husband’s permission to set up a company.þþ“This is the next step for women because it’s investing long term in business skills,” said Ms. Rao Gupta, whose institute researches and provides technical assistance for women in developing countries.þþThe hurdles can be high. Few women in Africa pursue a business education, often the preserve of well-to-do students heading for corporate jobs. In 50 major business schools in Africa — a continent of 900 million people — only 2,600 women were enrolled in local M.B.A. programs, Goldman’s research found.þþTo foster entrepreneurship and management education, business schools in developing countries are being paired with 50 universities and organizations in Europe and the United States. þþEarlier this month, for example, 10,000 Women announced that the Yale School of Public Health would work with Tsinghua University to provide management and leadership education to Chinese women working in public health. Women remain at their jobs, allowing them to be with their families and apply their new skills on the spot. þþ“Women often don’t have two years to get an M.B.A.” said Dina H. Powell, who oversees Goldman’s initiative. Family considerations as well as cultural differences make it difficult for many women to leave their home country for study abroad.þþIn Cairo, about 100 women annually can earn a business certificate by participating in the program, where they learn accounting, market research, e-commerce, fund-raising and how to structure a business plan.þþIn countries where attending school can be dangerous for women, a different tack is taken. The Thunderbird School of Management, using Goldman funds, brings Afghan women to its Phoenix campus for five weeks of training. The bank is also financing the training of local professors to teach business courses to women in Kabul.þþAT&T donated $125,000 through a foundation this year to bring women entrepreneurs from developing countries to the United States for a three-week college-level business course and a week of mentorship with American women business owners. þþ“This is still a small part of what we do,” said Laura Sanford, the foundation’s president. “But it’s an area that’s going to grow as it becomes more recognized that women are part of the economic landscape, and as business owners, they contribute to the economic welfare of their country.” þþ
Source: NY Times
