MANAGING THE EFFECT OF ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION ON THE AGRICULTURAL ACTIVITIES OF FEMALE ENTREPRENEURS IN AFRICA

Abstract

This paper explored the effect of environmental degradation on the entrepreneurial growth of rural women in Africa occasioned by biodiversity loss, deforestation, desertification, global warming, flooding, among others. This paper is qualitative in nature, having adopted descriptive analysis of secondary data. Unarguably, rural women increasingly face the challenge of having to adapt to the negative impacts of a fragile ecosystem and other natural disasters. More so, the large differences between men and women in terms of impacts, vulnerabilities, responses and capacity to adapt to environmental degradation largely depends on individuals’ access to resources, assets, information, services and decision-making power. Unfortunately, majority of the rural women in Africa are poor, and the gender discriminatory practices which is rife on the continent affects the distribution of social wealth such as land, finance, education, and health; this in turn impedes the development of African women entrepreneurs involved in agricultural.
activities like cultivation and growing of crops, rearing of livestock, fish farming, among others.

This paper therefore maintained that women play an important role in managing the environment given their wide-ranging functions especially in the agricultural sector. Consequently, it concluded that ensuring equal access for women to productive resources,
introducing policies that support entrepreneurship and developing action plans to enhance the resilience of women to the effects of environmental degradation is crucial to the entrepreneurial growth of rural women in Africa.