Mapping How Digital Platforms Are Shaping Women's Businesses Globally
Cherie Blair Foundation for Women
The Challenge
As new digital technologies become more accessible and advanced, there are growing expectations that alongside other business actors worldwide, women entrepreneurs in developing countries will also harness its benefits to grow and scale the operations of their businesses. To support its advocacy work for women’s economic justice, The Cherie Blair Foundation for Women wanted to carry out a wide-ranging survey of women entrepreneurs from around the developing world to understand how well-positioned women entrepreneurs are to benefit from technology-enabled tools and what challenges they face in growing their businesses through the use of digital technologies.
Our Approach
- Conducted extensive desk research to identify and contextualise priority topics for survey research. These included the opportunities and constraints shaping women’s business success in 2024, digital readiness, use of various digital platforms, knowledge and utility of AI tools for business efficiency, experiences of gender-based violence in the digital world, and the demand for learning new tools to grow their business in the digital space.
- Designed and delivered a robust research survey in four languages (English, French, Spanish and Arabic).
- Provided round-the-clock technical support to the Foundation to ensure survey target achievement and trouble-shooting any issues promptly.
- Undertook rigorous empirical data analysis, cross-examining demographic information and business profiles of women entrepreneurs with the challenges and opportunities they identified for enhancing their businesses through digital tools.
What We Delivered
The final report provided fresh insights from an online survey of 2,870 women entrepreneurs from 96 LMICs. This original piece of research:
- Assessed the changes in women entrepreneurs’ biggest self-reported successes and challenges during 2024.
- Took a deeper dive into how digital finance and social media have shaped businesses.
- Documented the extent to which women in LMICs face difficulties in accessing internet-enabled devices for business use, but also how digital platforms and services themselves stifle their fuller utilisation.
- Besides documenting women entrepreneurs’ aspirations for greater uptake of mobile money and social media marketing technologies, we helped identify the capacity challenges that prevent women from taking on available opportunities.
The final research report titled ‘Empowered or Undermined? Women Entrepreneurs & the Digital Economy‘ was launched by the Foundation on International Women’s Day 2025 among policymakers and key stakeholders wielding power to make the digital ecosystem more supportive for women.