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Hello and welcome to Business Daily on the BBC World Service. I'm Will Bain. Today, how to supercharge

startups in Sub-Saharan Africa. Nothing is as powerful as an idea whose time has come. I started this idea with $30.

The region has the highest rate of entrepreneurship in the world, but many of those businesses run into the same issue.

I wouldn't say it's easy to raise money, it's not, because again, you have to prove the case.

There are down days where you feel like you want to give up, but you remember why you're doing this.

70% of my workforce are women and people always encourage.

Madam, we have to keep going.

And that problem is exacerbated for the estimated 20 to 25% of those businesses that are set up by women.

So today on Business Daily, we're asking

how to get more cash to Africa's female entrepreneurs.

The big trigger happened when President Obama and his wife came in Dakar, Senegal.

Entrepreneurship can sound daunting as it hides behind a slightly fancy term,

but really it's having a great idea and turning that light bulb moment into a business.

And as our panel today, including the Senegalese fashion designer Safa Tussi,

you heard from there will explain, that idea can come from anywhere,

including, as it turns out, a passing compliment

from a former US First Lady. The stats back it up. According to the World Bank, sub-Saharan

Africa has the highest rate of entrepreneurship in the world, with around 42% of the non-agricultural

labour force classified as self-employed or employers. Yet the development

organisation warns most entrepreneurs are unable to grow their businesses beyond small-scale

subsistence operations, often because of an inability to access to private or state investment

...