BUSSW Researchers Lead a Global Conversation on Women’s Entrepreneurship
Emilia Bianco stood behind a wall that wasn’t really a wall. It was fabric, painted to look like brick, built to represent the barriers women entrepreneurs face across sub-Saharan Africa. Then she and Belinda Onyango handed the audience sticky notes and invited them to help take it down.
Bianco, an assistant professor at Boston University School of Social Work (BUSSW) and Onyango, a BUSSW doctoral student who grew up in Kenya, co-led this unique workshop presentation at the recent Social Work and Social Development (SWSD) 2026 International Conference in Nairobi, Kenya. This year’s conference theme, Harambee: For Sustainable Shared Futures, centered on collective action across borders to advance human rights and social justice. The researchers shared findings from an ongoing project on women entrepreneurs in Zimbabwe that focuses on the contributions the women make to local communities.
Professor Bianco and Associate Professor Margaret Lombe, both in the macro department at BUSSW, have led the project through a partnership with E4Impact, the University of Sacro Cuore in Milan and Catholic University in Zimbabwe. Beginning in 2021, they held three focus groups with 18 women entrepreneurs living in Harare and in rural and peri-urban areas of Zimbabwe. Contributors to the project also include BUSSW’s Assistant Dean of Teaching & Innovation Lyndsey McMahan, and MSW student Sophie Bailard (SSW ‘25).
What the Data Reveals on Gender Inequity
The research findings point to gender inequality that is woven into daily business life. Women described juggling household and maternal responsibilities that left them less time and flexibility than men to travel, train, or attend business events. Many struggled to access financing because they lacked collateral, since men typically own land in Zimbabwe. Networking mattered to them, but male-dominated business spaces made it hard to break in. Across the focus groups, women called for more government support, easier access to credit, and more flexible regulations.
From Research Findings to a Live Conversation
After presenting the findings, Bianco and Onyango opened the room to a world café style discussion. Attendees, who came from Kazakhstan, the United Kingdom and countries across Africa and Latin America, wrote their ideas on sticky notes and added them to the fabric wall. Suggestions included expanding access to inclusive UN financing, advocating for gender equality laws, helping communities set up shared childcare, and documenting women’s vulnerability to abuse from law enforcement and intimate partners. Several attendees pointed to the value of connecting Zimbabwean women’s stories to entrepreneurs elsewhere, including those working in Brazilian favelas.
By the end of the session, the fabric wall was no longer blank. Sticky notes covered nearly every brick; each one was a small piece of the collective response to the conference theme, Harambee. The ideas gathered in Nairobi will carry into the next phase of the research, as the project team finds ways to translate them into interventions that support women entrepreneurs in Zimbabwe and beyond.
Additional authors of the presentation and partners in the project include Bertha Ndlovu, formerly of Catholic University in Zimbabwe, Bradley Googins from Boston College, Mukobe Mwale from Fresenius Kidney Care, and Gladys Lois Appia, a child protection social worker with the government of Nova Scotia.
Learn more about global initiatives at BUSSW.
Check out the upcoming international conference co-hosted by BUSSW:
Beyond Borders: Advancing the SDGs Through Transdisciplinary Action