More and more women in developing markets and lower-income countries are driven to start their own enterprise. From restaurants, to high-end nail salons to volunteer organizations helping other girls and women, women leaders around the world are creating businesses and organizations that not only impact their own lives, but also the countries they pursue their endeavors in. According to MasterCard research, lower-income countries such as Uganda and Bangladesh have some of the highest rates of female entrepreneurs, despite discouraging conditions, CNBC reported. And, when more women work, economies grow as well.

Working a 9-5 job in a corporate world can be difficult and draining for anyone. But, some women leaders in third world countries are proving their strength by pursuing and succeeding in their own side businesses as well. For example, Gusi Tobby, an intern at a leading law firm in Nigeria, also runs Girl Hub Africa in addition to job. The country’s first volunteer platform of its kind, Girl
Hub Africa offers volunteer and outreach programs for young women who can contribute to key empowerment events, award ceremonies, businesses, and companies. Tobby started this hub as an effort to reduce the unemployment rate in Nigeria, Flourish Africa reported.

Tobby is taking women’s leadership to new levels in Nigeria. She says she began the project as a way to place young women in environments that will provide a great networking opportunity for possible employment and business avenues, Flourish Africa said. Since Girl Hub Africa was created, more than 30 percent of volunteers who participated were able to find paid employment from volunteering on the platform in 2017.

“I like to prioritize,” Tobby says. “When I’m doing something, I’m facing it squarely because that’s where I want to be at that given time. So I devote just as much energy into Girl Hub Africa as I do in my career.”

Women’s leadership and women’s initiative in developing or third world countries doesn’t stop with Tobby. In other developing markets such as China, Vietnam, Botswana, and India, there is a strong representation of female entrepreneurs as well, CBNC said.

“Women are an untapped resource in the developing world,” David Ruth, executive
director of the Elsevier Foundation. We agree.