Remove barriers for female entrepreneurs

Bangladesh would gain massively by encouraging more women to participate in entrepreneurial activities. But time and again, female entrepreneurs have had to face barriers while setting up a new company—barriers that, according to reports, have reduced but should be eliminated completely.

With Bangladesh moving towards its vison to achieve a middle-income country status by 2021, female entrepreneurship is needed now more than ever before. Today’s entrepreneurs come from diverse backgrounds and mostly rely on their own savings, on their families or husbands to finance the business in the beginning. Lack of access to sufficient capital, productive resources and business expansion opportunities are major barriers for them. Besides these problems, women are also susceptible to gender-related and societal obstacles that make it harder for them to initiate a business.

Such discriminatory attitudes have no place in a country that aims to create a niche for itself on the global stage, and should therefore be discarded.

Sharika Jaman Mim, North South University