International Women’s Day reflections
As we celebrated International Women’s Day yesterday, we briefly look at how female entrepreneurship is going worldwide. It is estimated that we could add $28 trillion to global GDP if we reach full gender equality in both politics and business by 2025. Interestingly, some countries are way ahead of others when it comes to empowering women. Female entrepreneurship rates in Sub Saharan Africa are the highest in the world. This may be because many women run millions of informal road side stalls across Africa. However, Kenya lags behind and this has pushed one organisation to focus on supporting women entrepreneurs. Further afield, Canada is investing $2 billion to support its female entrepreneurs. As a result, Canadian female entrepreneurs are starting business at a higher rate than their counterparts in G20 countries. In Russia, Tatyana Bakalchuk, the founder of Wildberries has become the second woman to become a billionaire there. Her company is an e-commerce site which sells 15 000 brands and attracts 2 million daily visitors. She actually started the company while she was on maternity leave. Women’s Day is also a good opportunity to look at the list of the richest black women which includes Oprah Winfrey, Ngina Kenyatta, Beyonce and others. Read more below:
Pay bus fare using trash
In Surabaya, Indonesia’s second city, public buses accept plastic bottles instead of cash as a form of payment for bus fare. This is meant to get rid of plastic waste which is a perennial problem in this part of the world. Indonesia is one of the largest contributors to marine plastic pollution in the world. Allowing passengers to pay with plastic trash also helps get more people to use public transport. You just pick up your plastic trash and go. After collection, the waste is auctioned to recycling companies and the proceeds go towards running the bus company. Other countries have also experimented with similar initiatives. Some have reverse vending machines where you feed trash and the machine pays you by dispensing cash.
Where do most billionaire live?
With a billion or more in your account, surely you can afford to live wherever you want in the world. There are 2 153 billionaires and 551 of those live in just 10 of the 1860 cities in the world. Most billionaires love New York City. New York has the world’s two biggest stock exchanges and is the biggest city in the US. 84 billionaires live there. 79 billionaires live in Hong Kong while 71 are in Moscow. London only has 55 billionaires. For the record, we do not have any billionaires living in Harare. Our own Strive Masiyiwa lives elsewhere, unfortunately.