The Many Facets of Female Entrepreneurship in West African Cities:
Trajectories and Experiences of Women in Ouagadougou and Lomé

Female entrepreneurship in Africa is currently the subject of enthusiastic media and political discourse. In recent years, there has been a proliferation of initiatives from governments, NGOs, and international organizations in support of female entrepreneurs, including in Francophone African countries. However, although there is genuine entrepreneurial dynamism in Africa, the few scientific data available on the subject suggest on-the-ground realities that are far from the images of female entrepreneurs leading large, thriving companies celebrated in magazines and reports from donors. Despite recent improvements, most self-employed women are in informal and precarious self-employment and continue to face many sociocultural barriers that limit the impact of programs. Furthermore, a whole aspect of entrepreneurship, more social and associative in nature, escapes the purely economic measure of the phenomenon currently promoted by developers.

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Funded by the Fonds de recherche du Québec (FRQ) and the Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie (AUF) in the Americas, this collaborative project between the University of Montreal, the Joseph Ki-Zerbo University, and the University of Kara aims to explore the multiple realities of female entrepreneurship in Africa, both economic and social, and its evolution over the past decades, using the two West African capitals, Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso and Lomé in Togo, as study sites