2020 REPORTThe Role ofEntrepreneurship in
Closing Gender Gaps
in Myanmar

Acknowledgements
This is an independent report commissioned by the Sasakawa Peace Foundation(SPF) and developed by Emerging Markets Entrepreneurs (EME), Support Her
Enterprise (SHE), and SPF from February 2020 to July 2020.
This study seeks to develop a comprehensive understanding of gender gaps in
Myanmar as well as the innovative business models that are being used to addressthese gaps. The challenges that businesses face in creating market-based solutions
that aim to improve the lives of women and girls are also explored.

The Sasakawa Peace Foundation•

Ayaka Matsuno, Director, Asia Women Impact Fund,
Gender Investment and Innovation Department•

Lily Yu, Senior Advisor, Asia Women Impact Fund,
Gender Investment and Innovation Department•

Sae Yamamoto, Program Officer, Asia Women Impact Fund,
Gender Investment and Innovation Department

Emerging Market Entrepreneurs – Myanmar•

Hitoshi Ikeya, Investment Director•

Matt Viner, Investment Manager•

Nang Oh Ngwe, Research Associate•

La Woon Yan, Senior Investment Analyst•

Hla Win New, Investment Analyst

Support Her Enterprise•

Celia Boyd, Managing Director

We are grateful for the insights from several contributors and experts in thedevelopment of this report, and record our appreciation to them:•

Andy Annett, Unreasonable Group•

Emilie Röell, Doh Eain•

Sandar Hla, DANIDA•

Vicky Bowman, Myanmar Centre for Responsible BusinessSpecial thanks go to our research partners without whom the rural researchelements of this study would not have been possible:

2•

Shun Ito, Associate Principal & Country Representative of Myanmar,
Microfinance Delta International Co. Ltd (MIFIDA)•

Thazin Khaing, Monitoring and Evaluation Manager, Microfinance Delta
International Co. Ltd (MIFIDA)•

Kyaw Min Swe, Founder and CEO, Ezay

Contents
1

Foreword

4

2

Executive Summary

103Introduction

22

Women’s Empowerment Framework for Southeast Asia
Why Entrepreneurship for Closing Gender Gaps?
Purpose of This Study
Approach

24
25
27
28

4

Identifying Gender Gaps in Myanmar

30

5Survey: Innovative Business Addressing Gender Gaps82

6

Case Studies Of Startups Working Toward Closing Gender Gaps In Myanmar
Survey Methodology
Heat Map
360ed
Doh Eain
Ezay
How She Did It
Koe Koe Tech
Kyarlay
Myanmar Women’s Self Defense Center
ONOW Myanmar
Yangon Broom
Zigway

96

99
99
100
104
108
112
116
120
124
128
132
136

7

Survey: Women Business Owners In Rural Myanmar

140

8

Recommendations

148

9

Appendix I: Advanced Recommendations For Establishing A Long-Term Support Vehicle

154

Purpose of Study
The Seven Dimensions of Women’s Empowerment For Gender Assessment
The Seven Gender Dimensions at a Glance: Comparing Myanmar To Southeast Asia
Women Focused Startups in Myanmar
Rural Women Entrepreneurs in Myanmar
Recommendations for Leveraging Business and Innovation to Close Gender Gaps in Myanmar
Striving Towards Gender Equality in Myanmar

Economic Empowerment
Personal Safety And Mobility
Formal Representation
Education
HealthTime
Decision Making
Survey Methodology
Limitations
Results

Survey Methodology
Key Findings
Rural Women Entrepreneurs - Gap Assessment
Rural Business Owner Profile

10 Appendix Ii: Advanced Recommendations For Creating A Formal Network Of
Paid Mentors

12
13
14
16
18
19

24

32
42
50
54
62
68
76
84
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85

142
142
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Foreword

1

5

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Foreword

At the Sasakawa Peace Foundation, we believe that enabling innovation is key to accelerating
the advancement of gender equality and women’s economic empowerment in Asia. Striving
to go beyond conventional approaches, we seek to create spaces for innovative ideas andapproaches to be piloted. We believe that entrepreneurship can be a powerful force to drivesocial change and to close gender gaps sustainably and inclusively. Thus, in Myanmar, wehave launched a new initiative called the Gender Equality in Myanmar (GEM) project to support
entrepreneurs and expand innovative business models that can benefit women and girls. GEM is
the newest addition to our programs to support women entrepreneurs and inclusive businesses,
to close gender gaps and to empower women and girls in Southeast Asia.
This report, The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar was commissioned
as the first step to identify innovative business models that are having a positive impact on
women’s lives in Myanmar. Based on the seven gender dimensions for women’s empowermentthat we defined in our previous publication, A Gender-inclusive Southeast Asia throughEntrepreneurship, we worked together with our partners, EME (Emerging Markets Entrepreneurs)
and SHE (Support Her Enterprise) who used their extensive reach, network, and expertise to
identify gender gaps in the country and search for innovative businesses that are developing
solutions to support women’s empowerment in Myanmar. The business journey, opportunities
and social impact that these innovative businesses are bringing to the market to serve more
women and girls are documented through ten case studies. The cases illustrate the diversity of
new impact-orientated business models that can exist in a young and vibrant emerging market,
and highlight the creativity of innovative enterprises in Myanmar in making a positive impact on
the lives of women and girls in Myanmar.
In addition, we included a survey on women business owners in rural Myanmar. Shedding
light on unregistered, women-owned- and run businesses, mostly mom’n’pop shops, provides
insights into how local businesses can contribute to women’s empowerment in the rural areasof Myanmar. Additionally, we hope these insights could provide some indications for how
innovative businesses could explore ways to work with local rural businesses to reach morerural women customers as they tend to be the centre point of rural communities and act as
information hubs. Those women business owners can be a powerful force to amplify the impactthat we could bring through the identified innovative business solutions.
We are hopeful that this report and the promising innovative businesses we identified will inspire
readers to go the extra mile to support entrepreneurial solutions that aim to close gender gaps
in a more sustainable way.
Lastly, we would like to express our sincere appreciation to our partners, EME and SHE, formaking this report a true inspiration. We hope that a greater number of innovative enterprises
will apply a more intentional gender lens to their business model, to expand their market,
accelerate their growth and eventually bring maximal impact to women and girls in Myanmar.

Foreword

Sincerely,

6

Ayaka Matsuno
Director
Asia Women Impact Fund
Gender Investment and Innovation Department
The Sasakawa Peace Foundation

Emerging Market
Entrepreneurs – Myanmar

EME was established in October 2018 and operates exclusively in Myanmar. EME wasfounded by UMJ Ikeya Investment, Emerging Markets Group Holdings and Dr Yit Fan
Wong in addition to three established regional angel investors and has cornerstone
investment from the Dutch Good Growth Fund managed by Triple Jump.
EME invests between USD 50-250K into early-stage Myanmar startups. The company
is sector agnostic, focussing on great founders who can drive innovation to scaleand redefine markets. With a full-time team on the ground, EME provides significant
post-investment support across a broad range of business areas including finance,
marketing, operations and strategy. EME often invests multiple times in its portfolio
companies, helping founders to focus on their business rather than fundraising andhelping startups reach inflection points and scalability.

Support Her EnterpriseSHE Investments (Support Her Enterprise Co. Ltd.) is a social enterprise based in
Cambodia, and working in the Southeast Asia region. SHE designs and delivers
Cambodia’s first and only business incubator and accelerator programs for women-led
MSMEs using a gender and cultural lens. SHE also works with government, nongovernment, private and public sector partners in Cambodia and Myanmar to develop
a portfolio of support services and solutions for enterprises to formalise and scale.
Since its launch in early 2015, SHE has helped 300 businesses to scale, whilst also
providing other business support services to over 1,000 women. Specialising in thebarriers facing women’s micro-small enterprises in Cambodia, SHE brings expertisein gender analysis of the challenges and opportunities facing women entrepreneursin emerging economies, from startup incubation through to investment readiness.

The Sasakawa Peace Foundation

Founded in 1986, the Sasakawa Peace Foundation (SPF) is one of the largest
foundations in Japan. SPF has five priority goals, of which “empowering women toachieve gender equality in society” is one. In November 2017, as part of the Asia
Women Impact Fund, SPF announced plans to invest up to USD 100 million into
impact investment funds that achieve favorable outcomes for women across Asia,
while generating market-rate returns. Aside from making investments, the Gender
Investment and Innovation Department at SPF also operates several grant-based
programs with the goal of supporting women’s entrepreneurship and economic
empowerment in Southeast Asia.
Women’s economic empowerment and entrepreneurship are key themes to promote
inclusive and sustainable development in Southeast Asia. In June 2019, SPF publisheda report entitled A Gender-Inclusive Southeast Asia through Entrepreneurship1.
This research included development of a Women’s Empowerment Framework forSoutheast Asia (Figure 1) that highlights seven mutually reinforcing dimensions topromote women’s empowerment in the region, including economic empowerment(including entrepreneurship), personal safety and mobility, formal representation,
education, health, time and decision-making.

References
1

Report available at https://www.spf.org/global-data/user53/G50report1.pdf

7

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Acronyms
ADB

Asian Development BankMIFIDA

Microfinance Delta International Co. Ltd

ASEAN

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations

MIT

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

BDS

Business Development Support

MMK

Myanmar Kyat

CEO

Chief Executive Officer

MMR

Maternal Mortality Rate

CFO

Chief Financial Officer

MSME

Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise

COO

Chief Operating Officer

MWJS

Myanmar Women’s Journalist Society

COVID

Coronavirus disease

MWSDC Myanmar Women’s Self Defense Center

CTO

Chief Technology Officer

NGO

Non-Governmental Organisation

DANIDA Danish International Development Agency

ONOW

Opportunities Now

DFATAustralian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade

SDG

Sustainable Development Goals

EMC

Emerging Markets Consulting

SEA

Southeast Asia

EME

Emerging Markets Entrepreneurs - Myanmar

SGB

Small and Growing Business

GCI

Global Competitiveness Index

SHE

Support Her Enterprise

GEM

Gender Equality in Myanmar (A Sasakawa Peace Foundation initiative)

SME

Small and Medium Enterprise

GLIA

Gender Lens Incubation and Acceleration (GLIA) Toolkit

SPF

The Sasakawa Peace Foundation

GSMA

GSM Association

SPRING SPRING Accelerator

HR

Human Resources

STEM

Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics

HSDI

How She Did It

TAF

The Asia Foundation

ICT

Information and Communications Technology

UK

United Kingdom

IDP

Internally Displaced Person(s)UMJ

United Managers Japan

IFC

International Finance Corporation

UN

United Nations

ILO

International Labour Organization

UNCDF

United Nations Capital Development FundIT

Information Technology

UNDP

United Nations Development Programme

JICA

Japan International Cooperation Agency

UNFPA

United Nations Population FundKKT

Koe Koe Tech

UNICEF The United Nations Children’s Fund

LPM

Local Partner in Myanmar

US

United States

MATA

Myanmar Alliance for Transparency and Accountability: MATA

USD

United States Dollar(s)MFI

Microfinance Institution

YC

Y-Combinator

Glossary
Equity Investment An ownership transaction where a company
sells shares as a means of rasing funds.
Typically the investor(s), private or instituional,
will become involved in the operation or
oversight of the business.
Debt A transaction whereby an investor(s) provide
funds in exchange for a fixed claim on the
cashflows generated by the company (interest
payments). Typically the investor(s), private or
insitutional, will not become involved in theoperation or oversight of the busisiness.

8

Convertible Bond Debt which may be converted to equity at alater date instead of being repaid with cash.
SAFE Note A SAFE note (simple agreement for future
equity) is a convertible bond that allows theinvestor to buy shares in a future priced round.
Y Combinator released the SAFE investment
instrument as an alternative to convertible
bonds in late 2013, since then many different
iterations of SAFE notes have taken form.
Generally SAFE notes are aimed at setting
simple and understandable investment terms
for early stage startups (thereby reducing
transaction costs).

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

FiguresFigure 1
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Figure 47
Figure 48
Figure 49

The Women’s Empowerment Framework for Gender Assessment of Women-Focused Start‑ups in Myanmar
Myanmar’s Performance across SPF’s Seven Gender Dimensions of Women’s Empowerment Framework
Commercial vs. Social Tendencies for Myanmar Startups by Funding Type
Female Labour Force Participation and Informal Employment across SEA
Unemployment / Youth Unemployment Across SEA
Informal Employment (non agricultural)
Financial Services 2014-2017 in SEA
Digital Payments in 2017
Domestic and Community Safety in SEA
Women’s Perceptions of Domestic Violence
Women’s Representation in Business and Policymaking in SEA
Women’s Representation in Parliament
Literacy and Education Levels across SEA*
Tertiary Education by Subject in Myanmar
Contraception and Delivery in SEA
Maternal Mortality and Life Expectancy in SEA
Suicide Rates in SEA
Survey on Sharing in Household Chores
Indicators of Women’s Decision Making
Decisions Made by WomenLand and Property Ownership
Men in SEA who find it unacceptable for women to work
Motivation for Founding Company
Company Founders and Customers by Gender
How are Women Served within the Business?
Challenge or Opportunities in being Women-Focused
Sources of Startup Capital
Capital Funding by Stages of Company
Follow-On Capital
Funding Type by Founder Gender and Company Gender Focus (% of funding type)
Respondents who have a financial controller
Average Annual Cost of a Startup (USD)
Likelihood of Founder Taking a Salary
Average Headcount Increase by Stage
Average Headcount Increase by Stage (%)
Proportion of companies measuring impact
Company Headcount Growth 2018-2020 by Whether Impact is Measured
Company Headcount Growth 2018-2020 by Whether Impact is Measured (excludes Seed Stage)
Respondents’ Biggest Challenges (% of responses)
Support Needed to Overcome Challenge
Share of Responses to an Open-Ended Question Regarding Support
Selected Areas of Support to Reach Business Goals
Support Desired by Gender (Weighted for gender)
Distribution of Support by Company Stage (Weighted by Company Stage)
Startups’ Scores along SPF’s Seven Gender Dimensions of Women’s Empowerment Framework
Respondent Ages
Reasons For Growing the BusinessSupport Needed for Growth
Reasons For Starting the Business

p.13
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p.145
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p.145
p.145

9

Executive Summary

2

Photo: Mega Caesaria

11

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Executive Summary
Purpose of Study

Entrepreneurship is a vital component for innovation, and innovation drives economic
growth. The research on Myanmar shows that it is the small and fast-growing
companies and startups unburdened by legacy costs and structures that are most
likely to drive social and economic change. Studies that have focused on the role ofentrepreneurship as a means of overcoming gender inequalities have shown thatwhen women engage in entrepreneurship, it creates a positive ripple effect beyond
their families into their communities.

Executive Summary

This research examines innovative enterprises in Myanmar, with particular attention
to startups that focus on women and girls. With a clear understanding of theirapproaches and challenges, it is possible to determine ways to support them. A“startup” by Eric Reis’ definition is: a human institution designed to deliver a new
product or service under conditions of extreme uncertainty1. Across innovative
enterprises and startups, this study looks at companies with fewer than 10 employees
and annual turnover growth of 10-20% (also known as small growing businesses;“SGBs”), as well as a smaller number of companies with 20-99 employees and lower
than 20% annual turnover growth (“Gazelles”), both of which have been recently
studied2. In general, startups in Myanmar remain largely under-researched,particularly those addressing gender gaps.

12

Startups

SGBs

GazellesA human institution
designed to deliver a new
product or service underconditions of extreme
uncertainty

Companies with fewer
than 10 employees andannual turnovergrowth of 10-20%

Companies with 20-99
employees and lower
than 20% annual
turnover growthThis study also reaches further into rural Myanmar and investigates female
owner-operated businesses. The vast majority are unregistered, though thesebusinesses are currently paying for services, such as microfinance or logistics, whichis evidence that Myanmar has the potential to sustain growing businesses that serve
low income businesswomen.
Throughout this study we draw attention to startup companies that are trying to
improve the lives of women and / or girls through enterprise to understand theirchallenges. We also assess gaps that remain at the base of the pyramid, hoping todirect investment into and support for existing startups. We believe that startups offer
the largest potential for creating change, particularly for those women at the base of
the pyramid operating unregistered businesses who are largely under-served.

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

The Seven Dimensions of Women’s
Empowerment for Gender
Assessment of Women-Focused
Startups in Myanmar

To understand the role of entrepreneurship in closing gender gaps, the Sasakawa
Peace Foundation developed a framework for Women’s Empowerment for the region,
which underscores seven mutually reinforcing dimensions for a more gender-inclusive Southeast Asia. This framework provided a basis to conduct gender-based
assessment of Women-Focused Startups in Myanmar.
Figure 1

The Women’s Empowerment Framework for Gender Assessment of
Women-Focused Start‑ups in Myanmar

Economic Empowerment
Ability to achieve economic success andstay financially secure

Personal Safety and mobility
Freedom from violence and other harmful practices that
undermine the bodily autonomy and mobility of womenFormal Representation
Representation within political governance and formal
employment in positions to drive key decisions

Education
Access to knowledge and education opportunities inorder to cultivate learning and expand possibilities in life

HealthFreedom from disease and pain, with adequate accessto healthcare and the ability to lead a fulfilled
and flourishing life

Time
Freedom from the unequal burden of unpaid work andthe prerogative to use that free time for study, paid work
and/or personal needs

Decision Making
Agency to make important decisions relating to a
woman’s life; across the dimensions of her personhood,family, community and work
Note: “Time” and “Decision-making” are cross-cutting dimensions that play the roleof enablers more than others

13The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

The Seven Gender
Dimensions at a Glance:
Comparing Myanmar
to Southeast Asia

Overall, Myanmar performs poorly compared with the rest of SEA across theabove dimensions. Although some positive inroads have been made in economic
empowerment, it will take time and effort for Myanmar to improve relative to its
neighbours. With a recently established democracy, there are opportunities forchange in the near to intermediate term.
Particularly striking areas include Myanmar’s high maternal mortality rate, thehighest in the region; and an alarming social acceptance toward domestic violenceagainst women. Interestingly, women’s perception of safety in the community is also
high, which seems at odds with high domestic violence incidents and acceptance.
This difference helps illustrate the limitations of macro-levelindicators; this report reviews local-level data alongside
Women’s unemployment,
macro-level indicators to bring more clarity to gender gaps
primary education
in Myanmar.

and decision making of

Women’s unemployment, primary education and decisionhousehold purchases all faremaking of household purchases all fare well compared to SEA
well compared to Southeast
countries. Higher levels of education achievement are also
Asian countries.
comparable to boys’, although both are low compared to theregion. However, educational attainment doesn’t translate
into a fair share of professional jobs; Myanmar’s female labour force participationis amongst the lowest in Southeast Asia and Myanmar lags behind Cambodia, Laos,and Vietnam for female participation in firm ownership.
Entrepreneurship can challenge the stereotypical role of women within the economy
and / or support women’s existing position. For example, employment focussed on
women would take advantage of a comparatively well-educated workforce that iscurrently, seemingly, underutilized; while startups focussing on women’s healthwould be serving an underserved consumer. Across these dimensions, shown in
Figure 2, entrepreneurs and their supporters are encouraged to find serviceable
gaps while also viewing women as active components of a more equitable future.

14

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Figure 2

Myanmar’s Performance across SPF's Seven Gender Dimensions of Women’s Empowerment Framework

In line with / outperforms
South East Asian countries

Medium relative to South
East Asian countries

Poorer outcomes relative toSouth East Asian countries

ECONOMICEMPOWERMENTPERSONAL SAFETY& MOBILITY

FORMALREPRESENTATION

Female labour force participation

Women’s perception ofcommunity safety

Number of seats held by
women in parliament

Women’s Digital
Financial Inclusion

Lifetime intimate
partner violenceFirms with womenin senior management roles

Women’s
Unemployment(including informal)

Women who believea husband is justified inbeating his wife

Firms with female
participation in ownership

EDUCATIONHEALTHDECISION MAKING

Female literacy rates

Maternal mortality

Women’s role in making “big”
decisions in the household

Primary school
completion rate for girls

Women’s
Mental Health(Suicide Rates)

Women’s role in making
decisions about own
healthcare

Lower secondary
completion rate
for girls

Births attended by skilled
health staff

Women’s role inmaking decisions abouthousehold purchases

Tertiary enrolment

Female life
expectancy

Child marriage(women marriedby age 15)

TIME
Myanmar lacks clear macro-level dataon women’s unpaid time burden, wage
differences (which lead to women working
more time for the same money), andother areas related to time. Local reports
indicate a gender pay gap, with womencarrying out most of the unpaid work.

Women ownership of land
Discriminatory work norms(prevalence of men believing
it is unacceptable forwomen to work)

15

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Women Focused Startups in Myanmar

Using the Women’s Empowerment Framework (Figure 1), we identified a rangeof Women-Focused Startups in Myanmar, applying a gender lens and developing
products and services to close gender gaps. Structured interviews were conductedwith 23 startup men and women founders whose businesses are contributing to
the closing of Myanmar’s gender gaps. The following are the highlights of ourresearch findings.

Both women and men believe that having a focus on women
within their business is to their advantage, in relation to sales,
branding and marketing representation.
Women in Myanmar are an underserved group and therefore concentrating
marketing efforts on them could have additional benefits. These benefits ranged from
simply targeting a narrow audience, to the potentially more meaningful approachof developing products and services for women in a market with wide gender
gaps. A similar idea was applied when women were included, not as customers,
but as employees or suppliers. Women being included within the business earned
appreciation which, in turn, could strengthen culture or productivity in the workplace.
Hence, the businesses researched in this study that are looking at brand, marketingand sales advantages by targeting women are likely leading what may become aconvergence toward an increased focus on female consumers in Myanmar.
35%

in Myanmar, just
35% of firms
include female
participation in
their ownership...

In Myanmar, just 35% of firms include female participation in their ownership and
41% have women in higher management3. The IFC’s review of six ASEAN countries
found that firms with greater female representation at board level had better returns,
performing 50% better in terms of return on equity, than those boards with no
women4. If Myanmar is to benefit from serving female consumers, it stands to reason
that it will also need to close the gender gap and increase women’s representationin the boardroom. In the meantime, women-led startups may be able to leapfrog
boardroom hierarchy and disrupt markets by providing women consumers with theservices they desire.

Businesses tend to be founded on personal or family funds, while
follow-on capital comes from grants and equity. Men receive adisproportionate amount of equity funding compared to women.
41%...and 41% have
women in higher
management4

86% of surveyed companies started with their own income or savings, or withmoney received from friends or family. 57% of respondents went on to raise either
equity, convertible debt (which is included herein as equity) or grants. Men’s disproportionate share of equity finance is common across other markets, emerging
markets in particular, while women accounted for just 11% of seed stage venture
capital in emerging markets in 20185. In our survey, women accounted for 43%
of equity-backed enterprises, but when weighting by gender was used, womenaccounted for only 30%. One case study founder reported that she found that whentalking to investors, mostly men, they trained their attention on her family plansover her business plans. This may not be indicative of the whole market, but it does
highlight just one of the barriers that women are more likely to face than men.

A correlation exists between the type of funding received and thecommercial or social focus of the business.
Our research indicates that funding type does appear to correlate with commercial
focus, as illustrated in Figure 3. For instance, 92% of companies that had received
formal funding (grant, equity or debt) had business plans and financial models, versus
60% of companies without formal funding. This implies that financial projections
could easily come after funds were received, as financiers tend to require them.
Grant and grant-equity (those that received both funding types) companies had thehighest social focus while still remaining fairly commercial. While there is limited datafrom the survey, the case studies tended to confirm that grants can play an enabling
16

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmarrole when it comes to equity and commercial investment / focus. However, there isalso a risk that dependence on grants and / or government / development partner
contracts might lead to situations which become difficult to sustain commercially.
All interviewees favoured a commercial enterprise structure, as opposed to noncommercial, largely as it enabled a fast pace through more autonomy.
When reviewing the trends for funding, those companies founded with personal,
friend or family money that went on to raise equity, grants, or both, tended to bebetter organised and more commercially oriented than those without formal follow-on
funding. This likely indicates that formal financing tends to contribute to businessorganisation or conversely that better organisation helps access formal funding.
Figure 3

Commercial vs. Social Tendencies for Myanmar Startups by Funding Type

Myanmar Enterprises Serving Women

Color: Funding Types Recieved:

EquityGrant

Personal, Friends, Family

Equity & Grant

More Social

Size: Number of Employees

More Commercial

While startups benefit from a lack of legacy costs and structures, they
are creating companies from nothing and this has its own challenges.
When asking survey respondents about their biggest challenge, it was “execution”,
broadly defined as the day-to-day operation of the business. Execution challenges
were most common among pre-seed companies, the least established group of
respondents. Interestingly, “help with managing the business” was ranked around the
median of support required to reach business goals (a multiple choice question), but“mentorship / technical assistance” was most common when founders were asked
open-ended questions around the support required to overcome challenges. “Human
resources” also featured as a key challenge for companies across each stage. Duringcase study interviews, a common theme was the role that startups play in training andretraining their staff. This training places both a cost-burden on the company, and an
operational burden on the founder, who is responsible for the hiring and often the
training of key staff.

17

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Founders value mentorship and, specifically, from someone who isable to support them for an extended period and who understands
the Myanmar market.
Case studies revealed that founders are limited in the support that they receive.
While some may have attended accelerator programs, or had informal mentors, theviews were that support ended after accelerators or that informal mentors were
often too busy as professionals. Indeed, many of the desirable support factors thatranked highly in the survey could in theory be associated with good mentorship. For
example, links to other markets, a supportive peer group and someone to get advice
from were the most highly ranked responses after access to capital.
At the same time, many case study interviewees also discussed the effectivenessof receiving support from people outside of Myanmar. Respondents noted that it
takes time for people coming from outside the country to understand the market
and their business’ role within the market. Prior to offering value, these experts
risked making recommendations based on paradigms from other markets. For
instance, it was noted that many people read about Myanmar’s digital leapfrog
and make false assumptions about adoption of technology, which can lead to poor
recommendations.

Impact measurement is varied and often informal.
Case study participants reported varying means for measuring impact from formalmonitoring and evaluation teams, to informal indicators such as number of customers.
The timeline at which women were considered also varied. Some companies included
women at the outset, while others grew to realise that the inclusion of women was
important to their wider business model: if a business model saw a clear benefit toincluding women, it tended to include them more purposefully.

Rural Women Entrepreneurs
in Myanmar
99%99% of the womensurveyed indicatedthat they wanted
to grow theirbusinesses andstated they had
positive cash flow.

A second survey was conducted with 104 female owner-operated businesses inrural areas to understand their aspirations, challenges and ways of supporting their
growth. 40 respondents were customers of Ezay, a logistics startup and 64 fromMicrofinance Delta International Co. Ltd (MIFIDA). Here are the key findings.

Women want to grow their businesses in order to provide for
their families, but with limited financial management they
may struggle.
99% of the women surveyed indicated that they wanted to grow their businesses
and stated they had positive cash flow. When asked why they wanted to grow theirbusinesses, women ranked increasing income first, followed by supporting theirfamily, and their children’s health and education. However, 92% do not separatebusiness and household money and only 73% track their business expenses,
indicating a desire to grow that may not be complemented by planning. Despite
40% of respondents being active customers of Ezay, an e-commerce and logistics
company that helps shops restock via a mobile app, 98% of women indicated thatthey use their smartphone only for communicating with customers, not for tracking
their expenses.
These results show that, even though women want to grow their business, there isa clear lack of understanding of the technology available to help them to do so, forinstance for expense tracking, inventory or other business monitoring. In turn, thislimited or paper-based data collection may make it more challenging for women togain access to credit. Group lending uses social networks to strengthen repayment
rates and 64 women in the sample were group-lending customers of Microfinance18

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Delta (MIFIDA). More digital data would likely provide fresh options for women or
indeed Microfinance institutions or other lenders to provide services to them. It isin this vein that Ezay is beginning to work with Microfinance institutions to provide
credit to shopkeepers who, through the Ezay app, can track their inventory turnoverautomatically. Opportunities Now (ONOW) is another business working within thisspace, using Facebook Messenger chat bots to communicate basic financial literacy
training and provide qualified leads to financial institutions.

Women recognised that they need training to achieve growthwithin their business, financial management and business management ranked highly.
After access to capital, the next highest-ranking responses for support desired werebusiness training and financial management training. Any organisation that considers
providing such training should observe that the majority of women surveyed had notstudied beyond lower secondary level with around half only studying at primary level.
Therefore, business training should be designed in a manner that takes educationlevel into account.
While the women surveyed may have limited formal education, they are all (99%)
succeeding in operating cash flow positive businesses. Moreover, the majority (64%)
are managing the business independent of their husbands, and 68% make high-level
decisions in the business. These results are notable, considering that country-level
data show women being mostly responsible for making major household purchases
19% of the time. Given their level of agency in decision making with regard to businessdecisions and their desire for training to grow the business, these women appear torepresent potential customers for paid-for business training.

Women who had received loans showed greater agency andpersonal development.
The main difference between the Ezay and MIFIDA customer survey groups was that
all of those surveyed by MIFIDA had accessed formal loans, compared to just 25%of those surveyed by Ezay. Ezay’s founder explained that the rural nature of theircustomers meant that many were far away from microfinance (MFI) agents; moreover,their limited accounts made it hard for loan officers to assess their credit worthiness.
While 68% of women indicated they made high level decisions about the business,this figure is broken into 56% who had accessed formal finance and 13% who had notreceived funding. It is widely accepted that financial independence creates agency
and the results from this survey appear to confirm this.
Interestingly, the other main difference between the two groups was in terms of thereasons for wanting to grow the business, through a multiple-choice question which
included to improve my confidence. Among the Ezay respondents, not one selected
this option, while 16 MIFIDA respondents (27%) did choose confidence as a reason forgrowing the business. This leads us to surmise that, just as having formal loans shows
evidence of increasing agency, so, too, does this financial empowerment appear tohave an impact on how women view themselves within the business’ growth.

Recommendations for leveraging
Business and Innovation to Close
Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Startups are vehicles that bring about change by disrupting the status quo and scaling
new solutions. When a gender gap exists within existing structures, they can become thenorm; however, startups have the opportunity to challenge existing norms and disrupt thesectors which typically exclude women. As such, helping startups to identify new problems
to solve, and providing them with support and resources to solve them, offers both socialand economic benefits for Myanmar.
19

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

The following recommendations are aimed at bringing together startups, theirinvestors and those operating in the ecosystem to support the growth of businesses
that can help improve the lives of women and girls in Myanmar by closing gender gaps.

1. Startups need to be purposeful about their strategy and how
they communicate this to find mentors and investors.
Most startups need to raise capital to grow, and raising investment comes fromcombining a clear narrative of mission with evidence of results. In the case ofstartups targeting gender gaps, this means identifying and measuring social andfinancial performance from the start. Understanding the company’s mission andits commercial value proposition is key, and having women in decision-making
positions will better prepare the company to think about solutions that target
women. Again, diversity in leadership allows for wider perspectives, given thatwomen and men experience the world differently.
Grants and government or non-governmental contracts offer some
When a gender gap
startups a means of support or investment in growth. Startups
should make the effort to understand the types of funding available
exists within existing
to them. However, receiving large amounts of funding fromstructures, they can
non-commercial sources may create less need for commerciallybecome the norm
sustainable business. Navigating funding, as with navigating earlycompany growth, can be daunting and complex. Startups shouldmake concerted efforts to find mentors and speak to investors to discoversupporters willing to share insights and networks. Women may find themselves
at a disadvantage when raising equity investment and should be aware of thisadded challenge over their male counterparts. At all times, a clear narrativeof the company’s goals and traction, coupled with historic and projected data,
should equip all founders with the means to build better relationships and accessmore funds.

2. Investors should recognise gender gaps as market opportunities and provide support beyond funding to startups closing
gender gaps.
Investors should recognise that investment is inherently biased toward men.
If investors are interested in applying a gender lens to their portfolio, theymust acknowledge and seek to attend to their own unconscious bias. Greater
representation of women in investment decision-making positions
may help. Women founders may also face different challenges inbusiness than men, but are also likely to understand the best ways to
Investors should
address opportunities for women. Investors should take into accountrecognise that investment
these factors when considering their approach and their financial
is inherently biased
and non financial support.

toward men. If investors
are interested in applying
a gender lens to theirportfolio, they mustacknowledge and seek
to attend to their own
unconscious bias.

This research indicates that startups addressing gender gaps in
Myanmar are seeking support in execution of their strategies aswell as human resources in terms of both training, and finding andretaining talent. This may also be the case for other startups in
Myanmar, a frontier economy with a nascent startup ecosystem. As
such, investors should consider the support they are able to provide
or recommend to startups, particularly those at an early stage or who
have recently experienced rapid growth.

3. Other ecosystem actors should help revise accelerator
programs for greater gender diversity and promote business
opportunities that arise from closing gender gaps.
Accelerator programs encompass all the areas of support that startups in thisstudy desire: funding, mentorship, networks and execution support. However,unless accelerators are considerate to gender in their approach, they may serve
to exacerbate gender gaps for female founders. The overly popular “pitch day”
20

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

is well-suited to English speaking, well-educated men who are used to speaking
in front of large audiences, while the Myanmar culture does not prepare womenin the same way for such occasions. Creating a formal mentor network byworking closely with a local Myanmar coordination partner may also provide
entrepreneurs with the support they desire outside of or alongside existing
accelerator programmes.
Research into gender gaps, particularly into groups that have not commonly
been researched in Myanmar, should be prioritised by actors seeking tocatalyse startups to solve new problems. As this research identifies rural female
shopkeepers as a key group for startups to serve, so, too, can new research
identify other underserved groups. In addition to contributing research,ecosystem actors should review existing startup toolkits focused on growth andsocial impact, and work to customise / combine a set of resources for Myanmar
startups, preferably in a range of Myanmar languages. Any such guidance should
ensure that commercial sustainability remains a key component for helping to
guide startups targeting scalable social impact.

References

Photo: MWSDC

1Reis, E (2011) The Lean Startup

2

Emerging Markets Consulting (2018) #ClosingTheGap Country Report Myanmar

3

World Bank Global Findex 2016 Data

4

IFC (2019) Board Gender Diversity in ASEAN

5

IFC (2012) Venture Capital And The Gender Financing Gap: The Role Of Accelerators

21

Introduction

3

23

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Introduction
Striving Towards Gender Equality in
Myanmar: Current Situation

A gender gap exists when there is a difference between two genders in a particularindustry or identified index, such as economic participation or education. In thecontext of this study, “gender gap” is used to describe and explore the different
situations for men and women in Myanmar and consider the activities that private
sector enterprises in Myanmar are currently implementing to close these gaps.
The United Nations Report of the Secretary-General, Special Edition: Progress Towards
the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) finds that significant gender gaps remain
across public and private sectors globally1. Despite progress towards the SDGs:•

Women globally spend an average of 3 hours or more per day on unpaid domestic
work than men•

Women’s representation in the global workforce remains lower than men’s, with
39% of employees being female, and only 27% of management positions being
held by women globally•

Gender gaps remain in legal structures, including more than 25% of countries
having legal gaps in laws related to violence against women•

29% of countries have legal gender gaps in employment and economic benefits•

In 2018, data collected from 69 countries showed that only 13 of them fully met
the criteria of having a comprehensive tracking system in place for gender-responsive budgeting

Women’s Empowerment Framework
for Southeast Asia

Introduction

With a focus on closing gender gaps in Southeast Asia (SEA), the Sasakawa Peace
Foundation devised a framework for Women’s Empowerment for the region (Figure 1),
which underscores seven mutually reinforcing dimensions for a more gender-inclusive SEA:

24•

Economic Empowerment•

Health•Personal Safety and Mobility

•

Time

•

Formal Representation•

Decision-making•

Education

This report explores Myanmar’s gender gap across these seven dimensions, andcritically analyses what gender equality and women’s empowerment look like inpractice, particularly when using market-based solutions from Myanmar owned andbased enterprises.

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Why Entrepreneurship for Closing
Gender Gaps?

Entrepreneurship plays a unique and crucial role for economic development, and theclosing of gender gaps within emerging economies such as Myanmar. Whilst public
sector institutions focus on building structures for development and civil society,just as importantly entrepreneurship creates a platform for innovation, enabling theprivate sector to create market-based solutions to a wide range of challenges facing
women. Entrepreneurship can be leveraged to be inclusive of women as key actors
in the closing of gender gaps, involving them in value chains as key stakeholders,customers, employees, suppliers, leaders and entrepreneurs themselves. If gender
gaps are to close across multiple sectors and dimensions in Myanmar, entrepreneurship must play a key role in creating solutions which are economically viable,
sustainable, and even profitable, in order to improve women’s agency, drive economic
growth, and create a more equitable and inclusive future for the country.

Entrepreneurship as a Driver for Women’s
Increased Agency
This study explores and reflects on how entrepreneurship uses innovation and a focus
on problem solving to drive social change. Gender gaps exist across many private andpublic sectors: in health, education, employment and civil society. Engaging womenas key stakeholders in enterprise development, whether they be entrepreneurs
themselves, or employees, customers or key actors in a company’s value chain thatenhances the inclusion of women, leads to an increase in women’s agency as decision-makers, leaders, and income earners. Whether it be having the agency to makedecisions about their own bodies, about their education, or their safety moving about
their community without an escort, this report explores how entrepreneurship candirectly drive change and increase women’s empowerment by using commercially
viable solutions.

Innovation Drives Economic Growth
It is widely accepted that innovation fuels economic growth. Michael Porter famously
wrote that, “It is only through the introduction of successful new products andprocesses that companies and nations can improve their competitive position”2.
Innovation’s importance is apparent in Myanmar, SEA and the globe, as newtechnologies drive change and economic growth. Just as the digital camera replaced
film photography, ride-hailing apps have replaced traditional taxis in many countries.
For example, since its launch only six years ago, Grab, SEA’s largest ride-hailing app
service, now operates across 9 countries, employing over 2 million drivers3, manyof whom are working in informal, emerging economies. Grab’s ability to adapt thecompany’s business model to different markets, and continuously innovate andintroduce new technology and products according to market demand, is an exampleof how innovation can drive employment and economic growth in emerging markets.

Innovation and Emerging Markets
Innovation is based on the interaction between enterprise, government and academia(the “Triple Innovation Helix”), and research suggests that one or two parties cancompensate for the others4.
Emerging markets such as Myanmar pose new opportunities for innovation andentrepreneurship. Myanmar is particularly interesting, given its very recent transition
to democracy, its geographic nestling between India and China, and its extremely
high mobile phone adoption rate. However, emerging markets also spend less on
research and development than their rich counterparts and tend to be worse at
fostering innovation.
Measuring innovation is difficult, but the Global Competitiveness Index (GCI) is a
generally accepted proxy for a country’s ability to nurture innovation. The last time
Myanmar was included was 2015 and it was ranked 134 out of 140 for the specific25The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

innovation metrics. Myanmar is also not listed in the Global Innovation Index5.
Companies across Asia and Africa have demonstrated both their ability to innovateand bring change to challenging environments, and the lower-income market as anuntapped resource. Not only can low income people in emerging markets afford tobuy products and services, but innovative solutions can also solve social problems
by creating and enabling inclusive, economic environments. The explosion of mobile
money in Kenya via M-PESA, for example, has led to consistent innovations further
engaging people in developing economies as key customers.
Although there are many indications that emerging nations simply lack theorganisation, capital and capacity to foster innovation, there are three factors which
support emerging markets when it comes to harnessing innovation for growth:1.

Borrow it mindset
China’s monumental rise to one of the most powerful countries in the world waslargely built upon creating products that were not invented in China. Simply put,emerging nations can import ideas from elsewhere. However, caution should
be noted. Rocket Internet entered the Myanmar market in 2012 attempting totransplant successful business models from elsewhere, but left in 2018 after
struggling to beat local companies already working in the same industries. At
the same time, CarsDB (online automobile classifieds), Shwe Property (property
portal), and Bagan Innovation Technology (digital consumer apps) are all examples
of innovations in Myanmar that had already occurred in other countries.

2. Compensation in the Triple Helix of Innovation
If one area of the triple helix is missing, or constrained from participating, thenanother may take its part. For example, the rural enterprises researched inthis study were mostly unregistered and therefore may lack access to formal
government services as well as education options; nonetheless, they are allreceiving services from private companies who, in turn, may aid their growth andinnovation.
3. Young, tech-savvy populations
Emerging markets have the opportunity to leapfrog legacy systems that may beslow in innovation. Myanmar’s mobile phone and 4G cell coverage is a perfect
example of an emerging nation having advanced tools at an early stage ofdevelopment6. Myanmar is famous for its leap in phone ownership (now almost100%) and it has a young population with 77% below the age of 447,8.

Startups as vehicles for innovation
Entrepreneurs are natural problem-solvers. They tend to face many failures before
they achieve success, embracing and learning from failure and adapting quickly tochanging circumstances means that startups are well placed to build on new ideas
and innovations, including those that are solving social problems (such as gendergaps). Newly established companies are free from the management structures,legacy systems, costs and large number of shareholders that established corporations
often have. Investors expect early stage startups to grow at close to 100% a year,
which can only happen by taking on bigger risks. This can mean trying new products,
introducing new methods to solve existing problems, introducing technologies toenhance efficiency, or being more prepared to fail, in the knowledge that multiple
failures and the lessons thereof often precede success.
Emerging Markets Consulting (EMC) reviewed World Bank Business Survey data for
Myanmar, and categorised companies depending on the size and revenue growthrate. They found that “Gazelles”, characterised by both high growth and medium
employment, were the least likely business type to have released a new productor service within the last three years. Myanmar’s ‘Gazelles’ were also more likely
than other SEA countries to be in traditional sectors, such as manufacturing. EMC’s
report recommends working with Gazelles, to foster innovation within these existing26

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

companies. As the most impactful group of companies in terms of growth and job
creation, it stands to reason to support Gazelles to innovate. However, focus onGazelles alone ignores the structural issues defined above: innovation requires
failure and established companies are less likely to embrace failure, as they arelarger and therefore have more to lose. By concentrating on supporting the creationand development of small and high growth businesses, private sector development
actors can increase the frequency of new products and ideas; through rapid failure,learning and idea generation, Myanmar may be more likely to find innovations thatgalvanise both social and economic change.

Gender Diversity for Innovation
Research carried out by the Kaufmann Foundation in the US shows that gender diverse
startups perform better in multiple areas, from fundraising to introducing innovative
new products. While there is limited gender data on startup performance in Asia, IFC
considered the role of women in leadership within ASEAN firms and the impact on
return on equity (RoE) and return on assets (RoA)9. In both cases, increasing women’s
participation at board level was shown to improve firm performance. The same report
explained that women in the boardroom were found to contribute diverse ideas,
improve board governance, encourage transparency in communication and help toavoid groupthink
According to McKinsey (2017), in general, women use five specific leadershipbehaviours more often than men: people development, expressing expectations andrewarding success, role modelling, inspiration, and participative decision making.
Diversity in leadership styles leads to better financial performance in businesses,
and equal representation is in the best interests of the company10. Considering thatwomen account for broadly half of the population in any country, it is also essential
to ensure that women are in decision-making positions; since men and womenexperience the world in different ways, gender diversity is required todevelop products and services that serve all people. Serving all genders
startups can be seenis as essential in creating a fair and equitable society as it is in creating
as vehicles throughfirm-level profits.

Overwhelming importance of startups inaddressing gender gaps in Myanmar

which entrepreneurs
can bring about
economic andsocietal change.

Gender gaps in Myanmar are greater than many of the countries in SEA.
Companies in Myanmar that represent the greatest immediate impact
for job opportunities often follow traditional business models, failing to demonstrate
innovation or being gender inclusive to the levels of other SEA countries11.

On the other hand, startups can be seen as vehicles through which entrepreneurs
can bring about economic and societal change. They are vital to economic progressand shifting from the status quo. Unburdened by the constraints of success, startups
can take big risks and, in turn, create the change that redefines how society operates– examples from Myanmar are included in the Case Studies section of this report.
According to the Myanmar Private Equity and Venture Capital Association, there isalso available capital to support entrepreneurs. Therefore, in a market where womenare objectively underserved and face gendered constraints, there lie any number ofbusiness models that may find a willing consumer, partner or supplier among the~30M women of Myanmar.

Purpose of this Study

This study was commissioned by SPF to develop a comprehensive understandingof the gender gaps in Myanmar as well as the innovative business models that are
being used to address these gaps. The challenges that businesses face in creating
businesses that aim to improve the lives of women and girls are also explored.

27

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Approach

A comprehensive review of macro-level data was conducted to provide an up-to-date
analysis of existing gender gaps in Myanmar. No one data repository for development
indicators contains sufficient data to assess each gender dimension. The study ofmacroeconomic indicators uses several datasets, although the majority are available
through the World Bank’s Development Indicators aggregator. Data are, wherever
possible, compared to data for the countries in SEA to consider Myanmar within theregional context. In many cases, the latest available data point for two countries may
be one to three years apart. This report uses the latest available data for all countries,
deeming this approach suitable for the purpose of providing Myanmar’s data incontext. Macro-level indicators are complemented with a review of recent literature
focusing on gender gaps and the situation for women and girls in Myanmar.
Two surveys were conducted. The first survey was held with 23 men or womenfounders of enterprises seeking to improve the lives of women and girls and focusedon understanding the problem being solved along with the progress being made andchallenges being faced. The survey targeted small and growing (SGB) companies,
classified by EMC, a consultancy, as companies with <10 employees and growth ofannual turnover of 10-20% and annual turnover of USD 10,000-50,000. However,some companies that had recently been small fast-growing and had grown into
Gazelles (20-99 employees; >20% growth) were also included as they indicate thetrajectory of many small and fast-growth companies in the near term. This study refers
to both groups together as “startups”. EMC noted that SGBs were more likely than any
other company-type to introduce new products and services, while Gazelles offered
the greatest potential for employment and growth. Therefore this survey intended
to analyse how to support SGBs in their pathway to growth and engaging with more
women and / or girls as they do so in their move toward closing gender gaps.
The second survey was held with women-led micro enterprises in rural Myanmar.
100% of this survey’s 104 respondents were women business owners in the rural
areas of Bago and Ayeyarwady regions. The majority of these businesses wereunregistered small shops. These “mom’n’pop” shops are a key node in the local
community network, serving anywhere from tens to hundreds of households fortheir basic groceries and sundries. As the key drivers of micro-small, informal actors
contributing to local community economies and to larger value chains, women’s
inclusion in the community as micro entrepreneurs is not only essential, but enhances
women’s agency and empowerment as independent income earners, managers anddecision makers.
The respondents in this second survey were all customers of one of two companies
that are targeting growth and scale; 40 respondents were from Ezay, an e-commerce
and logistics startup and 64 from Microfinance Delta International Co. Ltd (MIFIDA).
As such, this survey represents women entrepreneurs who are among the baseof the pyramid, who are currently able to afford services aimed at improving theirbusinesses (i.e. through financing and / or e-commerce and logistics). The survey
intends to identify the aspirations and needs of this population, paving the way forbusinesses and other actors to further engage with this group.
References

28

1

UN Economic and Social Council (2019) The United Nations Report of the Secretary-General, Special Edition:
progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals

2

Porter, M (1990) The Competitive Advantage of Nations

3

South East Asia Globe (2017), Ride Hailing App Cambodia Launch

4

Megnigbeto, E. (2018) Measuring synergy within a Triple Helix innovation system using game theory: cases ofsome developed and emerging countries

5

World Economic Forum (2015) Global Competitiveness Report

6

Myanmar Times (2019) reports that telecoms provider Telenor has “nearly 100%” 4GLTE coverage in 2019

7

WBG (2018) Myanmar has 113 cellular subscriptions for every 100 people

8

World CIA Factbook (2020)

9

IFC (2019) Board Gender Diversity in ASEAN

10

McKinsey & Company (2017) Women Matter - Time to Accelerate

11

Emerging Markets Consulting (2018) #ClosingTheGap Country Report Myanmar

Photo: Ezay29

Identifying Gender Gaps in Myanmar

431

Economic
Empowerment

The ability of women to achieve economic success and stay financiallysecure is paramount to economic empowerment. In this section
we explore women’s economic empowerment in three domains: 1)
participation in the workforce, both formal and informal, 2) digital
inclusion, and 3) financial inclusion (including fintech). “Economic
empowerment” includes the ability of a person to make their own
decisions regarding finances. In Myanmar, where women’s participationin the workforce is low in comparison to men’s, and women are twice as
likely to be unemployed, economic empowerment is a dimension in which
the private sector has significant potential to close gender gaps andcreate meaningful social and economic impact. It is widely acknowledgedthat women’s economic empowerment benefits whole communities, bothin regard to women as entrepreneurs and as individuals who can achieve
economic independence and security through employment
or income generating activities.
Entrepreneurship, whether led by female entrepreneurs or enterprises
making advances towards increasing women’s employment andincome, is an important mechanism to close gaps in women’s economic
empowerment in Myanmar. It should also be noted that, alongsideenterprises, other actors such as government and non-governmentalorganisations, also play an important role in upskilling women so theycan enter the formal workforce.
Entrepreneurship enables women to earn an income, in their role asbusiness owners, employees or suppliers within a value chain, whilst also
becoming financially independent. Myanmar has a smaller percentage
of female-owned SMEs than its neighbouring countries, though thebarriers facing women entrepreneurs in starting and scaling enterprises
are similar to other Mekong countries such as Cambodia and Laos. Poor
infrastructure and bureaucracy make it difficult for women to enter theformal economy, and lower levels of education, literacy and fewer womenin policy and higher decision-making roles also influences their ability
to run larger businesses. This does, however, pose an opportunity for
Myanmar in that increasing women’s access to entrepreneurial support
structures could, in turn, improve women’s ability to earn higher incomes,transition to the formal economy, and close thegender gap in the SME sector.
Entrepreneurship is one way of women striving towards economic
empowerment. Another, and the role of many enterprises, is the creationof training and employment opportunities for women.

32

Photo: Ulf Svane

33

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Participation in the Workforce
Figure 4

Female Labour Force Participation and Informal Employment across SEA

100%
90%
80%

80%

77%

70%

78%

MyanmarBrunei Darussalam
Cambodia

60%

Indonesia

50%

Lao PDR

48%

40%

Malaysia
Philippines

30%

Singapore
Thailand

20%

Timor-Leste

10%

Vietnam0%

Labor Force Participation Rate(higher is better)

Informal Employment(lower is better)

Male

FemaleFemale(% of Female Population Ages 15+)
(Modeled ILO Estimate)(% of Female Population Ages 15+)
(Modeled ILO Estimate)

Women’s participation in the workforce in Myanmar
stands at 48%, compared to men’s participation at
77% (Figure 4). Although a 48% participation issignificantly lower than men’s, the figure is almost
double that of thirty years ago (25%)1. There islimited data regarding Myanmar’s gender wage
gap, though some sources report that wages for the

Figure 5

Male(% of Total Non-agricultural
Employment)(% of Total Non-agricultural
Employment)same work conducted by men and women can vary
between 20%2 to as high as 45% in urban areas,
and 77% in rural areas3. Together with the Global
Gender Gap Report (2018) putting Myanmar’s
gender pay gap at 35%, all evidence suggests thatwomen experience a significantly lower average
wage than men.

Unemployment / Youth Unemployment Across SEA

18%
15%

Myanmar

12%

Brunei Darussalam
Cambodia

9%

Indonesia
Lao PDR

6%
3%
0%

2%

(lower is better)Male(% of Female Labor Force)(Modeled ILO Estimate)

Philippines
Singapore
Thailand

Youth Unemployment(lower is better)(% of LaboFemal Labor Force)(Modeled ILO Estimate)

3%

1%

Unemployment
Female34

Malaysia

5%

Female(% of Female Labor Force Ages 15-24)(Modeled ILO Estimate)Male(% of Male Labor Force Ages 15-24)(Modeled ILO Estimate)

Timor-Leste
Vietnam

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Figure 5 shows that unemployment in Myanmar is low in comparison to othercountries in the region, although women are twice as likely to be unemployed asmen. Myanmar has high levels of informal employment, which is defined by the ILO asjobs in small-scale, private enterprises which are not formally registered with thegovernment (Figure 6). This includes self-employed street vendors, taxi drivers,
home-based workers, and any other similar activity which involves producing goods
or services for trade. Agricultural and domestic activities, such as subsistence farming
or volunteer community work, however, are not considered to be employment,
informal or otherwise.
Figure 6

Informal Employment (non agricultural)

Informal Employment - % of non-agricultural employment

FemaleMale(lower is better)
100%

75%

50%

25%

0%

Myanmar2018

Brunei
Darussalam
2017

Vietnam2018

Thailand2018

Timor-Leste2013

Indonesia
2018

Lao PDR
2017

Cambodia2012

Although there is limited data for employment across ages in Myanmar, the latest
national survey shows the gender employment gap between ages 20 - 29 as being at
its highest4. The average age of marriage in Myanmar is 23.6 (higher than Cambodia,
at 22, but lower than Malaysia, at 25.7, and similar to the Philippines, at 23.4).
Myanmar’s mean age of having a first child is 255, and its mean childbearing age is296. This correlates closely to the gender employment gap: women in their twenties
are more likely to begin having children and leaving the workforce, whilst men
continue to work and leave childcare to women. Both Japan and Korea see an “M”
curve with women’s participation in the workforce dropping off around the age theygive birth and raise children, but returning to the labour market after raising children.
However, in Myanmar, women’s employment trends upwards until ages 40-44 andthen only drops by 2%.

35

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Digital Inclusion

Women and men who own phones are equally likely to own a smartphone. However,
women appear to be 29% less likely to own a phone at all. 34% of women surveyed
by GSMA (2016) reported that they didn’t have a phone because they “didn’t need”
one, compared to only 25% of men; whereas 38% of the women and 40% of themen surveyed said they couldn’t afford a phone. The Alliance for Affordable Internet(2016)7 argue that this identified “need” for a phone by men and women point towomen prioritising other kinds of spending over purchasing a phone (presumably
household and family expenses), as well as linking women to being unemployed
or in the unpaid (largely domestic, at-home labour) workforce so as not to need aphone, whereas men may need a phone because they are typically working outsideof the home.
According to recent data from the Women, Peace and Security Index, Myanmar has
made positive advances towards closing the gender gap in cell phone use (using data
for women aged 15 years and over)8; however, it should be noted that “usage” does
not necessarily equate with “ownership”, and access to a phone may be gained via
a male head of household, or other family member. The ILO also found that around
50% of women would need training in order to benefit from full smartphone usage9.

Financial Inclusion and Fintech

Between 2014 and 2017, the gender gap in Myanmar between women’s and men’s
access to financial services narrowed, with 19% of both genders accessing these
services by 2017 (Figure 7).
Figure 7

Financial Services 2014-2017 in SEA

Borrowed from a financial institution
Female

30%

2017
2014

Male

Myanmar35%

Cambodia(% age 15+)

2017
2014

25%
20%
15%
10%
5%

36

Cambodia

VietnamThailandIndonesia

Singapore

Malaysia

Philippines

Lao PDR

VietnamIndonesia

Singapore

Thailand

Malaysia

Lao PDR

Philippines

Myanmar0%

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

However, despite the country’s population increasing its use of mobile phones, themobile money industry remains in its infancy, with only 4% of men and 3% of women
having made digital payments in 2016-2017.
Figure 8

Digital Payments in 2017

Myanmar lags behind SEA in digital payments, men have slight advantage
100%
90%
80%
70%

MyanmarBrunei Darussalam

60%

Cambodia
Indonesia

50%

Lao PDR
Malaysia

40%

Philippines
Singapore
Thailand

30%

Timor-Leste
Vietnam

20%
10%
0%

4%

3%
FemaleMale

Made Digital
Payments

In the past year (% age 15+)

8%

7%
FemaleMale

Made or Recieved
Digital Payments

In the past year (% age 15+)

6%

5%
FemaleMale

Recieved Digital
Payments

In the past year (% age 15+)

Although competition between financial institutions and financial technology (fintech)companies continues, even if Myanmar reached between 5 - 8% of the population
using mobile money by 2020, this would still be the lowest figure in the region. As
Figure 8 shows, Myanmar ranks poorly for digital payments compared to other SEA
countries. However, even at these low numbers, there is a noticeable gender gap(men 4% and women 3%). This may also relate back to the previously mentioned
data (GSMA, 2016) of women reporting that they have less “need” for using mobile
phones, and the ILO’s argument that there is a need for digital literacy training for
women if they are to have equal digital participation.
The World Bank’s Global Findex10 shows that, between 2014 and 2017, women not
only increased their access to financial services in regard to opening an account at afinancial institution, but they actually slightly overtook men by 0.2% (in 2017 25.7% of
women held accounts, compared to 25.5% of men). This correlates to an increasing
percentage of women accessing loans, primarily through microfinance institutions(MFIs). In 2017, 19.3% of women and 18.8% of men borrowed from a financial
institution, increasing from 11.8% and 19.5% respectively in 2014. This significant
increase in women’s borrowing also shows that financial institutions such as MFIs
are increasingly targeting female borrowers, many of whom may be using loans for
informal enterprises11. The data from the multiple studies cited shows that a gender
gap remains in regard to women’s participation in the workforce. Although women
are increasingly accessing financial services, particularly from MFIs, they remain
behind men in terms of their use of digital (particularly fintech) tools.

37

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Innovative businesses addressing
women’s economic empowerment
How She Did It
Providing skills and employment opportunities for women
Yangon-based, How She Did It, provides training for women to increase theirskills in digital literacy, including social media, online marketing, and otherskills required in today’s urban workforce, such as management of online
documents and computer literacy. The company enables women to learn new
skills so they can become freelancers or be directly connected to new jobs,
thereby improving women’s economic empowerment and independence
through improved incomes and job creation.
Read the full How She Did It case study on page 112

ONOW
Digital Literacy Training and Tools for Financial Inclusion
ONOW has introduced several innovative technology tools focused on
improving women’s financial literacy and inclusion in the informal economy
across rural Myanmar. For example, their Facebook Messenger chatbot, “Mr
Finance”, is the first interactive financial education app which is purpose-built
for Myanmar, engaging individuals directly via Facebook Messenger toprovide financial advice. The app is designed to make people feel as though
they are getting direct, one-on-one advice rather than searching online foranswers. This demonstrates a gender-sensitive approach: a lack of digital
literacy skills can mean that women may not use internet search functions
to find information, but social media is a more familiar and therefore
comfortable and easily accessible platform.
Read the full ONOW case study on page 128

Ezay
Improving opportunities for women led MSMEs to improve
women’s incomes
Ezay is a recently established startup that is creating economic opportunities
for female micro-entrepreneurs by connecting retailers to wholesalersthrough a digital platform that provides delivery services. 95% of Ezay’s
1,600+ customers are female shopkeepers, and over 1,500 of those womenare receiving digital literacy training as part of their engagement with thecompany. By using innovative technology to link businesses within existingvalue chains with each other, most of which are women-owned enterprises,
Ezay is enabling women running MSMEs to increase sales, and has therefore
generated additional income (and as well as digital participation anddevelopment of new skills) for women and their families.
Read the full Ezay case study on page 108

38

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Yangon Broom
Employing vulnerable women from low socio-economic
neighbourhoods
Yangon Broom is another Yangon-based startup providing jobs for women.
Working in densely populated and low socio-economic areas, Yangon Broom
provides skills training and career opportunities for women, which enables
them to earn twice the average minimum wage of garment factory workers.
Since registering in 2019, the company has created 40 new jobs for womenfrom low-income backgrounds, creating direct economic impact for those
women and their families, and making a contribution towards closing thegender gap in women’s participation in the paid labour force in Myanmar.
Read the full Yangon Broom case study on page 132

Entrepreneurship is an important mechanism to close the gaps in women’s economic
empowerment in Myanmar with women as entrepreneurs, and enterprises taking
purposeful steps towards increasing women’s employment and agency overtheir ability to earn an income and manage their own money. 99% of businesses
in Myanmar are classed as SMEs12, and 75% of the country’s employment is reliant
on micro and small enterprises, many of which are owned and managed by womenin rural areas. There is substantial potential for SMEs to make meaningful progress
towards increasing training and employment opportunities for women, as well as
engaging more women in management and leadership roles. Further work can also
be done to engage the female-led micro and informal economy, such as in supply
chains or by enhancing the entrepreneurship skills of women micro entrepreneurs.
Enterprises can make significant progress towards closing gender gaps in economic
empowerment, primarily through improving women’s employment opportunities
and enhancing women’s access to entrepreneurship services. Additionally, they
can improve digital literacy and financial literacy through the use of digital tools, aswell as developing products which address the needs of women, as entrepreneurs,
borrowers, or customers. Women’s access to flexible employment opportunities may
also improve their capacity to participate in the workforce, and companies seeking toemploy women should take into consideration structural gender and cultural norms
which place expectations on women to focus on domestic duties such as housework,
childcare, and other unpaid labour.

What do the above tell us about how
entrepreneurship can address thisgender gap?

Enterprises have a significant role to play when it comes to the economic empowermentof women. Women act as key players within economic development as employees,
entrepreneurs, customers and actors within supply chains (such as rurally based
suppliers to larger enterprises in Yangon). Women are also key clients of MFIs and areincreasingly accessing different forms of capital, usually informal. The case studies
examined as part of this dimension demonstrate opportunity for the private sector to
engage women in economic development and empowerment through the use of key
target areas and tools. These include:
39

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Workforce Inclusion
Training and employing women in entrepreneurship or within different industries as
employees is a clear way to create social impact by increasing women’s economic
empowerment and agency. However, there remains a wide gender gap in the paid
workforce, which opens opportunities for further intervention. Women earning an
income and becoming financially independent, as business owners or as fairly paid
employees, is something all enterprises can consider as a key focus area if they are
to contribute towards this dimension. Flexible working arrangements can also be
considered to further enhance this contribution.

Digital inclusion
There is much room for growth when bringing women into the digital economy, andcompanies such as Ezay are demonstrating how teaching digital literacy skills tofemale shopkeepers can impact both their own ability to earn more, and also benefit
the larger company.
It is important to reflect on how economic empowerment is impacted by othercross-cutting dimensions, such as Time and Decision-Making. Providing entrepreneurship training and employment opportunities for women without taking into
consideration gendered social norms and barriers such as time constraints andhigh rates of gender-based violence, for example, means that potential solutions orcontributions towards closing gender gaps may not be meaningful unless a holistic
approach is taken. Providing jobs for women is not enough. Creating an environment
in which women can grow their confidence, skills, agency, ability to make choices andearn incomes independently, and have opportunities which will allow them to thrive
and reach their potential is what will drive change. Creating these environments andopportunities using local solutions designed for women, in Myanmar specifically, isthe responsibility of enterprises if they are aiming to contribute towards women’s
economic empowerment.
Although there are enterprises contributing value to the economic empowerment of
women in Myanmar, there remains significant opportunity for further contributions
from government and non-government agencies. The Government, for example, canenhance national and local (township) policies which support businesses to adopt
best practices for gender inclusion within workplaces, and encourage gender equity
within both public and private sectors.
Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) can focus on the training and skills
development of women to enable them to enter the formal workforce, or increase
their ability to earn incomes as entrepreneurs. Training and access to resources which
can increase women’s skills in digital literacy, vocational training, entrepreneurship,
and financial literacy can support more women in Myanmar, particularly those in ruraland underserved communities, to enter or increase their participation in the formal
or informal economy.
References

40

1

ILOSTAT Database (December 2019)2

Oxfam (2014) Delivering Prosperity in Myanmar’s Dryzone

3

GSMA (2016) Mobile Phones, Internet and Gender in Myanmar

4

Ministry of Health and Sports (MoHS) and ICF. 2017. Myanmar Demographic and Health Survey 2015-16

5

CIA Factbook, accessed 2020

6

UN Data Statistics accessed 2020

7

GSMA (2016) Mobile Phones, Internet and Gender in Myanmar

8

Women, Peace, and Security Index (2019)

9

ILO-SPF (2020) National Assessment Of Women’s Entrepreneurship Development In Myanmar

10World Bank: Global Financial Inclusion Data, accessed 202011

Based on conversations with MFI professionals in Myanmar

12

Thiha Ko Ko (2018); The Myanmar Times, Progress in SME Financing But More NeededPhoto: Yangon Broom

41

Personal Safety
and Mobility

A key dimension that enables women’s empowerment ispersonal safety and mobility. We explore personal safety andmobility according to three domains: 1) the influence of genderand cultural norms, 2) the private sphere and 3) the publicsphere. The role of government and NGOs in addressing thesethree domains cannot be underestimated. There are also
many opportunities for entrepreneurship to play a major rolein addressing gender gaps in the three domains, particularlyin the public sphere, for example, creation of women-friendly
public spaces, innovations to enable safer forms of transport
for women, and promotion of gender equality practices inworkplaces. The following section provides an overview of thecurrent gender gaps across the three domains, and discusses
the role of entrepreneurship to promote women’s personalsafety and mobility in Myanmar.

42

Photo: Ulf Svane

43

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Gender and Cultural Norms

Gender and cultural norms can influence society’s outlook on women’s personalsafety and mobility.
While conducting research into Myanmar culture in 2015, Thein cited that “decency”,“modesty” and “chastity” were the most common norms associated with women1.
The study describes a woman’s virtue as being based on her ability to live up to thesenorms; in practice, this means abstaining from sexual activities and cohabitating until
after marriage. Women are also expected to demonstrate “modest” behaviour in theway that they dress, and how they behave in public.
Fundamental to the idea of male superiority is the concept of “hpone”. Hpone isassumed to be a natural and abstract quality that gives higher authority and status tomen. In Theravada Buddhist societies like Myanmar’s, this pronounces that women
are inferior to men in religious status. This is then reinforced and reflected in society
and cultural practices2.
Enterprises can potentially play a role in changing cultural gender stereotypes
by encouraging women to enter new industries, which may be male dominated.
Focusing on providing mentorship and leadership programs for women internally,and striving towards a gender balance at senior management level, could alsochange perceptions toward women’s traditional roles over time. The public sector, ofcourse, has a role to play in challenging gender stereotypes, and promoting womenas female role models rather than exacerbating or failing to address existing – andoften damaging – expectations of women within civil society.

Women’s personal safety and mobility
in the private sphere
Gender Based Violence
The Women, Peace and Security Index ranks Myanmar second only to Singapore andIndonesia among SEA countries in terms of the percentage of women who reportfeeling safe in their community, at 69% (see Figure 9). However, data also showsthat gender-based violence, particularly domestic violence within the household, iscommon and even traditionally accepted.
In Myanmar there is a saying: “If you beat your wife until her bones are broken, shewill love you more”3. Acceptance of domestic and gender-based violence against
women is widespread, and even a small percent of the younger generation appear to
Figure 9

Domestic and Community Safety in SEA

100%
90%
80%

Myanmar

69%

70%
60%

Brunei Darussalam

51%

50%

Cambodia
Indonesia

40%

Lao PDR

30%

Malaysia

20%
10%

Philippines

11%

2%

0%

Intimate partner violence(experienced by women in the past year, %)Community Safety(perception among women ages 15+, %)Women who believe ahusband is justified inbeating his wife
(any of five reasons in Fig. 10) (%)

44

Women who were firstmarried by age 15(% of women ages 20-24)

Singapore
Thailand
Timor-Leste
Vietnam

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

accept this traditional view. A 2017 report from the Burnet Institute reveals that 5% ofgirls and 11% of boys aged between 11 - 18 years old believe that it is sometimes
justifiable for a boy to hit his girlfriend4. For women who do experience violence, lessthan 3% seek help from social workers or authorities5.
Limited data exists on the type of violence that women in Myanmar experience, andthe significant number of unreported cases makes it more difficult to understand theextent of the issue. However, the Myanmar Demographic and Health Survey 2015-16
states that, of those women surveyed, 44% experienced a combination of sexual andanother type of abuse. A recent news article on the subject of unreported violenceagainst women in Myanmar quoted one researcher as saying, “Women do not wantto say anything because their reputation is at risk” and “Women are believed to beinferior, so people will blame the woman and believe that she is promiscuous”6.
The discrepancy between a relatively high sense of community safety amongst
women and high rates of intimate partner violence / acceptance of partner violence,reflects what is “acceptable” violence, and what is “unacceptable” and feared. One
interpretation of this data is that: violence within the household may be acceptablewithin traditional culture, and when initiated by family members, is not necessarily
something to be feared; however, violence perpetrated by strangers outside of thefamily home, within the broader community, is not acceptable and something to
be feared.
Public systems should enable women to have recourse to the support they need to be
free from gender-based violence; government can work collaboratively with
non-government national and international agencies to promote awareness-raising
activities on this issue. Enterprises, too, can contribute towards averting gender-based
violence by creating safe spaces for women within the workplace as well as working
collaboratively with gender-based violence organisations to provide job training andwork placements for women. When women have experienced violence and need to
re-enter the workforce, employers can work closely with gender-based violence
experts and organisations to ensure that victims of violence get the support theyneed, and that perpetrators of violence are not able to locate or harass women atwork. Although startups and the wider private sector may not always be well placed
to focus on the issue of gender-based violence, there are opportunities to work collaboratively across sectors to create more inclusive and safe workplaces for victimsof violence across the country.

Figure 10

Women’s Perceptions of Domestic Violence

Women Who Believe A Husband Is Justified In Beating His Wife
100%

Myanmar80%

Brunei Darussalam

60%

Cambodia
Indonesia
Lao PDR

42%

40%

Malaysia
Philippines

20%

10%

13%

Singapore

22%
10%

0%

Thailand
Timor-Leste
VietnamWhen she argues
with him

When she burns
the food

When she goes out
without telling him

When she neglects
the children

When she refuses
sex with him

45

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Women’s personal safety and mobility
in the public sphere“Personal safety and mobility” refers to women being free from violence and otherharmful practices that undermine their physical autonomy and mobility.
Women and girls report being fearful of experiencing abuse or violence outside of thehousehold or immediate community – in public spaces. The freedom of movement ofgirls outside of the home is tightly controlled by their parents, and later by husbands,
as public places can be considered unsafe (particularly public spaces where there aremen). Considering Myanmar’s high rates of gender-based violence and harassment,
this fear is likely justified. All respondents surveyed in a recent study carried out
by SPRING accelerator reported seeing or experiencing different forms of abuse,including non-physical violence or harassment such as verbal abuse7. Families, andparticularly parents, may therefore often be fearful for their daughters’ safety, whichleads to restrictions on their freedom of movement outside of the household and
immediate close community.
To exacerbate this, women are poorly portrayed in the media as being particularly
vulnerable, often as victims to acts of violence. Women in the media are eight times
more likely to be labelled as victims (or survivors of violence) than men (7.6% offemale sources versus only 1.4% of male). As victims, women are most likely to be
portrayed as victims of sexual violence (27%) or victims of non-domestic crimes (27%),in contrast to men who are most likely to be portrayed as victims of war (42%)8.
Enterprises have the opportunity to create public spaces which are gender-sensitiveand enhance women’s mobility by promoting safety and engaging women as key
stakeholders in the design of public spaces. This includes women with disabilities,
who may not be able to access some public spaces as well as private sector spaces
such as office buildings easily.

Disability

ActionAid Myanmar (2019) conducted a study working with focus groups comprisedof women with disabilities, highlighting the fact that women who are disabled areeven more vulnerable than able-bodied women to gender-based violence, abuseand discrimination. Tradition and cultural norms in Myanmar attach a social stigma topeople with disabilities, resulting in women and girls with disabilities being less likely
to have an education, and more likely to experience sexual and physical violence,poverty, and lack of access to the justice system9.
A lack of accessible infrastructure greatly reduces the mobility of women withdisabilities. In Myanmar 4.6% of the population (almost 2.5 million people) is
estimated to have a disability10. Barriers to mobility could include physical (a lackof accessible infrastructure which enables people with physical disabilities to easily
access buildings, transport, sidewalks, bathrooms, or other private and public spaces
to an equal degree as those without a physical disability); an inability to communicate
and a lack of access to healthcare and tools which could improve communication;and mental or learning disabilities, which can create barriers to full participation in
civic life, the workforce, and more.
DaNa Facility, an “innovative private sector development program”11, works
with private and public sectors to create a more inclusive economy in Myanmar,
particularly for marginalised groups including women with disabilities. One of their
key objectives is to “promote inclusive and responsible business”, particularly within
the agribusiness, textiles and financial services industries.
Enhancing the accessibility of transportation systems, communication tools,
education institutions, and the built environment gives an opportunity for enterprises
to close the gender gap by facilitating the full participation of disabled women in theeconomy and civic life. This could mean creating training and employment pathways,
improving workplaces to make working spaces, shared communal areas, doorways
46

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

and bathrooms more accessible for people in wheelchairs or with other forms of
disabilities, or using new technologies and innovation to provide additional services
catered specifically for people with a disability, such as ride-hailing app Grab’s
introduction of GrabAssist12. There is not only a significant need, but also ample
opportunity for innovative companies to address the gender gap in women’s mobility
by focusing on creating such environments.

Workplace Safety

Women’s personal safety and mobility refers to their rights within the workforce, as
well as within the household, community and public spaces. This dimension refers
to the often harsh working conditions and harassment faced by many of the women
making up 70% of SEA’s workforce in textile and garment factories, and the 83%of global migrant domestic workers who come from SEA13. The private sector in
Myanmar is largely made up of informal enterprises, which do not enable women
employees to work under safe conditions that abide by labour laws, making themmore vulnerable to abuse, unfair or unsafe working conditions. Enterprises that areoperating in the formal economy and actively taking steps towards providing safe,
secure and fair employment can contribute towards achieving improved safety andmobility for women in Myanmar.

Innovative businesses putting
women’s safety and mobility at thecentre of their models
Doh Eain
Gender Inclusive Urban Planning in Yangon
Doh Eain is an urban planning and community space development business.
Doh Eain takes a gender-inclusive approach to engaging women and girls in
the co-design of community spaces which help women to feel safer, having
completed 13 public spaces, as well as delivering education and skill-building
opportunities for girls and their parents. Providing inclusive education
alongside their core activities increases women’s and girls’ agency, and anevaluation report of their activities states that the girls participating in theirprograms “develop skills, gain a voice, spend more time outside the house,and develop ownership.”12

Read the full Doh Eain case study on page 104

47

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

MWSDC
Teaching women self-defense and confidence
Another business focusing on women’s safety in Yangon is the Myanmar
Women Self Defense Center (MWSDC). It was founded by a Myanmar national
who noticed that her friends had restrictive curfews as their parents feared
for their safety after dark. Although providing women with self-defense
training may not directly lead to a reduction of violence towards women, theclasses do increase women’s confidence and mobility within the city, making
both young women more autonomous and parents less restrictive of theirdaughters’ movements. By providing additional training for employees ofvarious companies and organisations, there is also opportunity to improve
both men’s and women’s understanding of women’s right to a life free ofviolence.
Educating men and boys about gender-based violence and increasing
their understanding of topics such as consent has gained recognition as
an effective practice for the prevention of violence against women. The
World Health Organisation review of educational programs in Africa andAsia for men found that workshops helped male participants to “takegreater responsibility for their actions...have greater respect for womenand communicate more effectively. As a result of the program, reductions inviolence against women were reported in communities in Cambodia, Gambia
and South Africa”13. Although still at startup stage, organisations such as
MWSDC, by increasing women’s confidence and delivering educational
programs on sexual violence towards women, demonstrate the opportunity tocontribute towards a reduction in Myanmar’s gender-based violence rates.
Read the full MWSDC case study on page 124

What does this tell us about how
entrepreneurship can address thisgender gap?

Enterprises have a unique opportunity to address women’s safety and mobility
within the public sphere including the workplace as well as within the wider
community. Encouraging women to leave the home, as well as encouraging theirfamilies to allow them to do so, plus creating safe public spaces for women overtime may have a long-term impact on their self-confidence. Engaging women andgirls as key stakeholders within activities such as town planning, as Doh Eain does,
should become common practice and a requirement of any community development
initiative, if towns and cities are to become accessible for all civil society regardlessof sex, gender, ethnicity, ability or disability.
Education programs which are directed at both male and female participants can also
provide opportunity for the engagement of men and women in discussions about
women’s safety, particularly when addressing gender-based violence at home, theworkplace or in public places. Working with women and girls to improve their self-confidence, such as MWSDC does through martial arts, is no doubt valuable. However,their work with businesses and employees in teaching both men and women about
harassment and gender-based violence arguably has the potential to create deeper,and long-lasting impact by increasing awareness and understanding of key issues
and root causes behind these acts.
There is also opportunity for the media and related enterprises, to use technology
and social media platforms to provide access to information, as well as change
the ways in which women are typically portrayed in the media (as victims). Access
48

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

to information outside of general media channels could also combat the negative
portrayal of women, by providing users with media that challenges such stereotypes.
Finally, there remain ample opportunities for improvement and further innovationfrom companies in Myanmar to address the gender gap of women’s mobility in relation
to creating accessible and equal environments for women with disabilities. Women
with disabilities are identified as being twice as likely to experience discrimination,
violence, abuse and a lack of access to educational and economic opportunities,
and they remain a largely ignored group as customers and employees within theprivate sector.

References

Photo: ONOW Myanmar

1

Thein, P (2015), the Local Resource Centre, Yangon, Gender Equality and Cultural Norms in Myanmar

2

The Gender Equality Network, Myanmar (2015) Raising the Curtain: Cultural Norms, Social Practices andGender Equality in Myanmar

3

John Grafilo, The Myanmar Times, Behind the Silence on Violence against Women in Myanmar, 3rdOctober 2018

4

The Burnet Institute (2017) Adolescent Reproductive Health in Myanmar

5

Myanmar Women’s Journalist Society (MWJS) and International Media Support & Fojo Institute (2017) Gender
in Myanmar News: News Content Analysis from a Gender Perspective

6

Myanmar Times (2018) Behind the silence of violence against women in Myanmar

7

SPRING Accelerator (2018) Myanmar Landscaping Report

8

Myanmar Women’s Journalist Society (2017)

9

Tawngmai N Khum (2019) ActionAid Myanmar: Women and girls with disabilities face double discrimination
in Myanmar

10

UN ESCAP (2019) Disability at a Glance 2019: Investing in Accessibility in Asia and the Pacific11

http://www.danafacility.com/

12

https://www.grab.com/sg/transport/assist/13

SPF (2019) A Gender-Inclusive Southeast Asia through Entrepreneurship

14

Excerpt from a SPRING evaluation report for Doh Eain provided to EME

15

Gordon G, Welbourn A. (2001) Stepping Stones and men.

49Formal Representation

The formal representation of women is crucial if Myanmar is to progress
towards gender equality across all sectors. In this section we explore
formal representation across both public and private sectors, and the roleenterprises can play in promoting women as role models and leaders.
“Representation” is important for younger generations to see women insenior roles in government, public services, as entrepreneurs, or within
business management and leadership as employees, shareholders or on
governing boards. In this section we explore formal representation across
two sectors; 1) the private sector, particularly women in middle and senior
management roles, and 2) the public sphere, focusing on the prevalenceof women in government and parliament.
The representation of women within political governance and higher
influential or decision-making roles within formal employment actively
challenges the patriarchal structure of the society, and creates anopportunity for emancipation from those structures. For example,
the term “Emancipatory Social Entrepreneurship” may be used todemonstrate when women have stepped into leadership roles as
entrepreneurs, particularly within industries which are typically maledominated, such as technology1. This breaks traditional gender barriersand emancipates women from being confined to lower decision-making
roles in business and industry.
The formal representation of women is important to consider, not only
within business and entrepreneurship, but across all sectors and aspectsof civil life, including government. Women represented as leaders
challenges a culture which actively raises women and girls to believe
themselves to be vulnerable and submissive and is crucial if the next
generations are to have role models who inspire change.

50

Photo: Doh Eain

51

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Women in the Private Sector

According to The World Bank Entrepreneurship Survey, women in Myanmar make up
35% of business owners, 42% of management and 29% of directorships (Figure 11).
Although data from the Ministry of Labour lists only 3% of Myanmar conglomerates
that have female CEOs.
Figure 11

Women’s Representation in Business and Policymaking in SEA

100%

Myanmar75%

Brunei Darussalam
Cambodia
Indonesia

50%
25%

Lao PDR

42%

35%

Malaysia

29%
12%

0%
Firms with female
participation in ownership% of firms

Firms with female
top manager% of firms

Share of female directors% of total directors

Philippines

11%

Singapore
Thailand

Parliamentary representation Proportion of seats held bySeats held by women, % women in national parliaments
Seats held by women, %Timor-Leste
Vietnam

Women in Government

Myanmar does not currently have gender-disaggregated voting data. However, data
describing women’s participation at varying levels of government reports that their
numbers are steadily increasing (Figure 12).
Figure 12

Women’s Representation in Parliament

Women as a percentage of all MPs
12.5%

2011–2016

2016–2016

10.5%

10.6%

10.3%

9.7%

6.2%

4.8%

2.9%

4.8%
0%

National Parliament

Upper House

Lower House

State/Regional Parliaments

In the Myanmar 2015 election, the number of women MPs increased to 10% acrossboth national and state / regional governments. Men continue to dominate decision-making roles and positions of power within civil society, with Daw Aung San Suu
Kyi, State Counsellor of Myanmar, remaining the only female minister in cabinet.
At the President’s Office, while women make up 53% of total employees, only 10% arein management roles. In the Ministry of Mines, 42% of the workforce is female, but
only 10% of senior level positions are held by women2.
According to the Asia Foundation (TAF), 33% of women MPs indicated that they
face gender-based discrimination in their roles. Most of the discrimination included
specific incidents of disrespect shown by other government staff, political leadership,
party members and male colleagues in parliament3. Not surprisingly, Myanmar has
an institutionalised tradition of male leadership and a history of rule by an all-malemilitary junta spanning almost 50 years.
The same TAF report shows that, of more than 16,743 village administrators nationwide
in 2012, only 19 were women, constituting about 0.1% of the total. Currently, 3.4%
of Myanmar’s approximately 72,000 police officers are women, and occupying only
2% of all mid-level positions. No woman holds a rank higher than police lieutenantcolonel, the highest mid-level rank.
52

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Innovative businesses addressing
women’s formal representation
360ed
Female Tech Founders Leading the way for Women’s
Representation
360ed is a digital education company, founded by a woman inspired by her
daughter to show her that she could have the same opportunities for her future as boys, and recognising that education plays a key role in changing themindset of young girls and boys about gender norms and ICT.
As a female founder and CEO, Hla Hla Win recognises her leadership positionin the technology industry as unique and important when it comes to inspiring other women and promoting female role models publicly. She regularly
participates in public speaking and often makes a point to decline invitations
to speaking engagements if there is an under-representation of women on
panels and as keynote speakers. Hla Hla Win says, “If I’m invited to a panel
with three men and I’m the only woman, I have a responsibility to ensure myfellow women are also being represented.”
Read the full 360ed case study on page 100

What does this tell us about how
entrepreneurship can address thisgender gap?

Entrepreneurship plays a key role in the promotion of women in leadership and decision-making roles. Considering the lack of support women feel or actively receive fromtheir colleagues, female role models are severely lacking in leadership roles acrossboth the private and public sectors in Myanmar. Although politics and governments
can often be slow-moving when it comes to structural change, entrepreneurshipprovides an opportunity for female leaders to step up.
Regarding longer-term change in the public sector, education on public policy andholding MPs accountable to policy change may enable progress towards closing thegender gap in formal representation. Although the number of women in politics islow, mentorship programs to engage young women and girls with existing female
leaders as role models could also motivate next generation movements to drivesocial mobility and gender equality.
Platforms which engage women and enable them to have input into policy have potential
to highlight issues affecting female populations as well as encouraging women to have avoice. Technology and social media could be powerful tools for highlighting female rolemodels and increasing the presence of women in politics across digital media.

References
1

Blin, M (2008) Export-oriented policies, women’s work burden and human development in Mauritius

2

UNDP (2016) Gender Equality and Women’s Rights in Myanmar

3

The Asia Foundation (April 2017) Women’s Political Participation in Myanmar: Experiences of Women
Parliamentarians 2011 - 2016

53

Education

In Myanmar, girls are encouraged to go to school and university, andthere is gender parity in terms of boys and girls attending school. In
this section we explore women’s and girls’ access to education acrossmultiple sectors: 1) formal schooling, including stereotyped gender roles
within the formal education system; 2) female school dropout and its
impact; 3) women’s access to digital education; and 4) sexualand reproductive health education.
We explore how access to education at primary and secondary level
demonstrates gender equality; however, a gap in access to education
remains in rural areas. We also consider that, although access to
education may be equal, young girls drop out of school as a resultof gender bias such as against menstruation with little sexual or
reproductive education provided in schools to combat this. In addressing
access to quality education which enables women and girls to enter theworkforce as adults, technology-centred enterprises are increasingly
playing a crucial role.

54

Photo: Doh Eain

55

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Gender parity in access to education achieved in
Myanmar, but urban-rural differences prevail
Data from 2018 shows an equal percentage of males and females completing
primary and lower secondary education in Myanmar. Indeed, more women than men
are enrolling in tertiary education. The literacy rates of adult men and women are
also close, with 72% of women over 15 being literate, versus 80% of men. However,the national data on female education mask economic, regional, and urban / ruraldisparities. Shan State, for example, has the lowest female literacy rate among
young women, at 59.4%. The national data reveal that children from the poorest
households enter primary and secondary schools later than their economicallyprivileged counterparts, many of whom are living
in urban areas such as Yangon1 (Figure 13).
Figure 13

Literacy and Education Levels across SEA*

120%

100%

96%

96%

Myanmar80%

80%

Brunei Darussalam

72%

68%

60%

Cambodia
Indonesia

62%

Lao PDR
Malaysia
Philippines

40%

Singapore
Thailand
Timor-Leste

22%

20%

0%

Literacy rate, Adult
FemaleMale% of females ages % of females ages
15 and above
15 and above

Primary completion rate
FemaleMale% of relevant% of relevant
age group
age group

Lower secondary completion rate
FemaleMale% of relevant% of relevant
age group
age group

School enrollment, tertiary
FemaleMale% gross% gross

The Myanmar Health and Demographic survey shows a large disparity between
urban - rural populations as well as between wealth quintiles. On average, only 9%of urban households (8% women; 10% men) have no education, versus 23% of rural
households (24% women; 21.5% men). The same data shows that as much as 30% of
the lowest wealth quintile have no education versus just 9% of the highest. Different
regions also have highly differentiated data, such as Shan State or Kayin where just
18%-23% of women have some secondary education, compared to Chin (31%) or
Tanintharyi (29%). The highest levels of tertiary education are in Yangon (men 10%;
women 13.9%); Nay Pyi Taw, (women 9.2%; men 5.9%;); and Mandalay, (men 6.3%;
women 7.6%)1.
Whilst there is available data on the level of schooling in Myanmar, little is available
regarding comprehension of various subjects. However, in subjects such as STEM
which are traditionally expected to be more male dominated, we can see close toequal numbers of graduates of both genders from tertiary education institutions(Figure 14).

* Lower secondary education completion rate is measured as the gross intake ratio to the last grade of lower
secondary education (general and pre-vocational). It is calculated as the number of new entrants in the last gradeof lower secondary education, regardless of age, divided by the population at the entrance age for the last gradeof lower secondary education; there are many reasons why the rate can exceed 100 percent. The numerator may
include late entrants and overage children who have repeated one or more grades of lower secondary education
as well as children who entered school early, while the denominator is the number of children at the entrance age
for the last grade of lower secondary education.

56

Vietnam

16%

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Figure 14

Tertiary Education by Subject in Myanmar

Percentage of graduates from tertiary education programmes by subject

Female60%Male
53% 53%

47% 47%

40%
29%

20%
0%

33%

36%

26%

15% 17%
0% 1%

2% 1%

3% 1%

4% 4%

Education
programmes

Agriculture,
Forestry,
Fisheries andVeterinary
programmes
Healthand Welfare
programmes

5% 7%
Natural Sciences,
Mathematics
and Statistics
programmes

Business,
Administration and
Law programmes

Engineering,
Manufacturing
and Construction
programmes

Information andCommunication
Technologies
programmes

Arts and Humanities
programmes

Science, Technology,
Engineering andMathematics
programmesin tertiary education
Programmes
other than Science,
Technology, Engineeringand Mathematics intertiary education

The key issue is that, although boys and girls, young men and women are equallyaccessing education from primary through to tertiary education levels, there
remains a rural and urban gap in access to formal education. Moreover, the gender
parity in overall education numbers does not necessarily equate to gender parity
in employment. This raises the question: in Myanmar, are women expected to be
educated but not to participate in the paid workforce?
Equality in regard to university graduates, particularly in emerging industries such as
STEM, could contribute more to Myanmar’s economic development when it comesto startups and established companies using innovation. Greater gender diversity incompanies – including STEM and technology related companies – boosts innovationand economic performance. Therefore, an increase in female graduates and womenentering the workforce as well as rising up through the ranks to decision-making
roles can help to drive further inclusivity and therefore innovation and economic
growth in such industries.

Education and Gender RolesThe education of women does, of course, impact their profession: professional,
technical or managerial occupations account for the highest proportion of employed
women (45%) and men (33%) with more than secondary education. Women and men
with no education most often work in unskilled manual labour roles (50% and 46%,
respectively). However, only 2% of Myanmar corporations have female CEOs, despite
women on average outperforming men at school.
At the community level, the value of girls is measured in terms of suitability for
marriage or employment, although this is not captured in the data that reports parity
among girls and boys in education. Traditional gender roles are taught to children at
an early age and are reinforced in school education and textbooks. GSMA describes
school textbooks illustrating fathers as being the income earner, protector, manager
and hard worker of the family and community, whereas mothers are described as
being nurturing, gentle, and the primary caretaker of children, other family members
and the home. When such traditional expectations of gender roles are taught both athome and then formally within the education system, this could result in girls growing
into women who have low self-confidence, low ambition to be high income earners oreven find employment in the future, and an ongoing gender gap in the workforce as
women continue to stay home to care for families and households.

57

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Girl dropouts

When girls drop out of school, it usually happens around puberty, which is understood
to be as a result of embarrassment over menstruation. When girls start menstruating,they may not receive formal health education from the school, or informal educationfrom their parents or family members, and so the embarrassment can cause them toremain home.
Adolescence is also the time when girls are contending with becoming women, andtheir value as workers or wives begins to increase relative to the absolute value of
simply educating them. All reports still indicate that a girl is much more likely to needto drop out of school to work than her brother. SPRING reports that, among girls
who had dropped out, all wished to return to education, indicating that families playa crucial role in making these choices, and it is not necessarily the decision of girls
alone to leave school.

Impact of girls dropping out of,or staying, in school

The Myanmar Health and Demographic Survey of 2016 found that women who stayin school and have higher than secondary education (33%) are significantly less likely
to find it acceptable for a man to physically assault his wife than women with lower
levels of education (52 - 55%). Amongst men, the acceptance of domestic violence
does not vary consistently with education levels; however, it is lowest among men
who have higher than secondary education levels (35%).
There is a clear correlation between women’s education levels and their ability toearn an income, be less likely to experience violence, and family planning. Women
with high education levels are not only less likely to agree that violence against
women within the household is acceptable, they are also less likely to experience
violence themselves. Only 6.4% of women with tertiary education experienced
domestic violence in the past 12 months, compared with 20.4% of women with noeducation, and 16.6% of women with only primary education. Marriage between men
and women may also be a contributing factor; women and men with higher education
may be more likely to marry a spouse with a similar education background, whereas
those with lower education levels and living in rural areas may be more likely tomarry a spouse from the same geographical area, living within similar conditions,and with similar education backgrounds. It can be assumed that education levels andgeographical locations are linked to the percentages of men and women who areperpetrators or victims of domestic violence.

Sexual and Reproductive
Health Education

There is limited data on sex education from a macro perspective. However local
research carried out by the Burnet Institute shows that young people in Myanmar
have a limited understanding of sexual and reproductive health, with 38% of
adolescents admitting they did not know a woman could become pregnant if she
had sex only once. There is clear data that women who have higher formal education
are less likely to become pregnant in their teenage years and are more likely to havesmaller families. The need for Myanmar to improve sex education does appear to berecognised by the government and is being supported by UNFPA2.
The Burnet Institute showed that girls received most of their information on puberty,
relationships, contraception and menstruation from their mothers, but received
most information about HIV and other sexually transmitted infections and diseases(STIs) from the print media, school teachers and health workers. Girls also wanted
information on menstrual hygiene.
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The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Grassroots activists the Purple Feminists Group launched a campaign in 2020
challenging the stigma, encouraging people to share their stories about menstruationon the group’s Facebook page using the hashtags #MenstruationIsNotShameful,#PeriodisPowerful, and #DignifiedMenstruation. The group’s founder Nandar, 25,
wants to “engage with as many people as we can” so the “conversation becomesnormalised and people no longer feel ashamed to talk about something that happens
naturally,” she told media source Myanmar Mix in February 20203.

Innovative businesses putting women’s
and girl’s education at the centre of
their models
360ed
Inspiring girls through digital education
360ed is providing services and products to government and non-governmental organisations. The company purposefully approaches the design ofclassroom materials for teachers and students to combat more traditional
textbooks and materials commonly used, which reinforce traditional andcultural gender norms. For example, 360ed worked with JICA and the Ministryof Education to lead the redevelopment of textbook and mobile applications
in order to remove traditional gender stereotypes from the learning materials.
Other educational materials 360ed develops includes topics on sexual
reproductive health, the sciences and English Language.
Read the full 360ed case study on page 100

Koe Koe Tech
Pyo Pyo May app
Koe Koe Tech focuses on developing software and apps to address key
social issues in the Health, Law, and Governance fields. The company has
developed multiple mobile applications designed to close gender gaps,
particularly in the health industry. It has also developed the “Pyo Pyo May”
app, Myanmar’s first mobile app for girls and young women to provide themwith information about their health, bodies, fitness, social relationships,
contraception, and more. This app provides a platform specifically designed
for Myanmar’s tech-savvy, female youth to access information they may not
be able to get from their home, families or education system, providing analternative to outdated sexual health education classes and formal education
institutions.
Read the full Koe Koe Tech case study on page 116

59

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

What does this tell us about how
entrepreneurship can address thisgender gap?

Entrepreneurs can disrupt the traditional culture of preference for hiring malecandidates over female, particularly in industries which are typically male dominated.
There is ample opportunity for digital education for women to enable them to enter
the digital economy and industries, particularly as Myanmar is rapidly developing anddigital literacy skills are increasingly in demand globally.
Education enterprises can look to the skills that will be required more and more, suchas software engineering, STEM, digital literacy, etc. and focus on improving womenand girls’ access to education opportunities which would enable them to enter theseindustries. Partnering with government and education institutions to make theseopportunities accessible could assist with reaching women and girls in rural areas, togradually close the urban-rural gap in digital literacy.

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The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Providing women and girls with access to education opportunities expands thepotential for future learning, income generation, and leadership potential. Closing
gender gaps in access to education for boys, girls, men and women meansincreasing the number of women and girls who can access both formal (primary,secondary and university) and informal (such as vocational training, businesstraining or similar) education programs, leading to long-term outcomes. Focusing
on dissolving the barriers facing girls in relation to staying in school, and the genderbiased curriculum often taught to both boys and girls, are also opportunity areas forstartups that seek to create long-term, systemic change in the education and future
employment sector.

References
1

Ministry of Health and Sports (MoHS) and ICF. 2017. Myanmar Demographic and Health Survey 2015-162https://www.unfpa.org/data/transparency-portal/unfpa-myanmar

3

Myanmar Mix (4th February 2020) #PeriodisPowerful: Myanmar activists challenge menstrual taboos.

61

Health

In this section we explore the impact of women’s access to healthcare
services, as well as emerging trends in the private sector in Myanmar
towards enhancing women’s agency within the healthcare sector. We
discuss women’s access to health services, including 1) maternal health,2) mental health, and 3) women with disabilities.
Myanmar suffers from the highest maternal mortality rates and the lowest
female life expectancy in SEA. Some enterprises are tackling this throughtechnology, seeking to provide women with greater information andcapture enhanced data to improve these statistics which are typicallyworse in rural, low income areas. We also discuss the need for increased
focus on improving women’s access to mental health services, with
Myanmar showing alarming numbers of female suicide, the highest
in SEA. Women with disabilities also experience a lack of healthcare
services, which could be addressed through further collaboration
between public and private sectors. Overall, there is little data on issues
such as women’s health in regard to physical and mental disability, so
there also remains opportunity for public and private sectors to improveresearch and data collection to lead towards potential innovative
products and services designed for this market.

62

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The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Maternal Health

Myanmar has the highest maternal mortality rate (MMR) in SEA. Not only is the rate ofdeath higher than elsewhere, but World Bank data shows that it actually increased in2017 to 250 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births (Figure 15).
Figure 15

Contraception and Delivery in SEA

300
250

250

MyanmarBrunei Darussalam

200

Cambodia
Indonesia

150

Lao PDR
Malaysia

100
50

50.5

41.7

Philippines

69.9

63.4

Thailand
Timor-Leste0

VietnamMaternal mortality ratio
modeled estimate,per 100,000 live births

Figure 16

Singapore

Mortality Rate,under 5 (Female)per 1,000 live births

Mortality Rate,under 5per 1,000 live births

Life expectancy
at birth (Female)years

Life expectancy
at birth
years

Maternal Mortality and Life Expectancy in SEA

100%
90%

Myanmar80%

Brunei Darussalam

70%

Cambodia

60%

57%

50%

Indonesia

51%

40%
30%
20%

Malaysia
Philippines
Singapore

25%

Thailand
Timor-Leste

10%

Vietnam0%Unmet need for contraception% of married women ages 15-49

Births attended by skilled health staff% of total

Contraceptive prevalence, modern methods% of women ages 15-49

There is limited data regarding attendants at birth, making it difficult to comparechanges over time. On record, 60% of births were attended by a skilled health staff
in Myanmar in 2016, with the former data point being in 2010, at 70% (Figure 16). The“skilled attendant at birth” chart shows the latest data for SEA countries, although thelatest data for Lao PDR is 2012 and may have changed since.
When comparing Lao PDR Maternal Mortality Rates in 2012 to the percentage
of attendants at births, there is a clear problem. In 2012 there were 254 maternal
deaths per 100,000 live births in Lao PDR, with a 40% rate of attendants at births. In
Myanmar, however, despite 60% of births having attendance, the mortality rate wasalmost the same, with 250 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births. This may indicate
a lack in quality maternal health services available to women in Myanmar, which may
be a greater issue in rural areas than urban locations such as Yangon.
In a study carried out by UNFPA on maternal deaths in Myanmar in 2017 1, researchers
found that there are three times more maternal deaths in rural areas than urban,
and the highest number of maternal deaths were clustered around women between
64

Lao PDR

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

25 - 39 years old. More than 50% of all maternal deaths were women who only had
up to Primary education, and 62% of deaths were women who were either in unpaid
labour (i.e. housewives, not in paid employment) or low-income workers.
Most maternal deaths in Myanmar occur during the 42 days after birth, often due topostpartum haemorrhage. Many others occur during the prenatal period. Around 30%
of prenatal deaths are related to abortion, illegal in Myanmar, often due to improperand unsafe procedures during the abortion, leading to injury and death.
The recommendations from UNFPA stressed improving the identification of causes ofdeath in order to understand and more effectively combat maternal mortality. Their
recommendations included:•

Re-sensitisation and re-training of administrators and others engaged in the
Maternal Death and Surveillance Response process•

Analysis of maternal and prenatal care at township levels•

Need for regular reviews at referral hospitals•

Need for knowledge and experience sharing meetings•

Dedicated budget for assessing death during childbirth

Mental Health

Myanmar has among the highest rates of female suicide in SEA, with women in
Myanmar being statistically 50% more likely to commit suicide than men. This is instark contrast to neighbouring countries such as Thailand and Cambodia, and also far
from other countries in the region such as the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia. In
fact, only Lao PDR and Vietnam also have higher rates of female suicide than male(Figure 17).
Figure 17300

Suicide Rates in SEA
Suicide rates per 100,000 people

Female

Male

21.4

200
11.4

100

11.1

10.9

9.8

9.0
6.3

5.7
3.7

0

MyanmarLao PDR

Vietnam

4.9

Singapore

4.8

Thailand

9.0

8.7

6.2
3.7

Timor-Leste

3.6

Malaysia

3.2

Cambodia

5.2

2.8

Brunei
Darussalam

2.3

Philippines

5.2
2.2

Indonesia

There is a severe lack of understanding of mental health in Myanmar. Although thisis not an uncommon issue around the world, Myanmar’s history of civil war, over
100 different ethnic groups, a colonial and military past, combined with collective
trauma from past and current conflict, means that mental health challenges would
be expected to be significant for both men and women, making it a clear gap in thehealthcare sector.
Frontier Magazine published an article in 2018 calling for more scrutiny into mental
health in Myanmar, but little progress seems to have been made2. According to
Frontier Magazine, Yangon and Mandalay have 2.5 beds for mental health patientsfor every 100,000 people, while other states and regions have 0.3. According to thehead of psychiatry at Yangon University, in 2016 there was only one psychiatrist forevery 260,000 people: or around 200 qualified psychiatrists in the whole country.
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The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Disability

In the 2014 Myanmar Census, more women than men had a disability, with mental
health not being included in the census other than statistics under disabilities related to“remembering / concentrating”. Census data shows that there is a consistent patternof women experiencing physical (“seeing”, “hearing” and “walking”) disabilities athigher numbers than men, as well as higher numbers of women experiencing multiple
disabilities.
The census also showed that disabilities vary widely by region: Labutta Townshipin the Ayeyarwaddy Region reports a disability prevalence of 11%, compared to
Mandalay with just 2%. However, there is no information on the underlying causes, orwhether these disabilities are physical or mental; the surveyed categories of disability(sight, hearing, walking, and memory / concentration) could reflect either mental or
physical disability, or both. Similarly, in the Myanmar Demographic and Health survey
2016, there is no mention of mental health. The only reference to any sort of mental
challenge is when discussing nutrition and children, and that poor nutrition may leadto “mental impairment” later in life.

Innovative businesses putting women’s
health at the centre of their models
Koe Koe Tech
Providing access to digital maternal health information forvulnerable women
Koe Koe Tech is a technology company launched in 2013, with its flagshipapp Maymay. The app is designed for women to learn about family planning,
pregnancy, childbirth and childcare practices. Women who use the app report
improved understanding about risks during pregnancy and best-practicemethods for newborn care. Maymay is now used in every township in
Myanmar, including rural areas and Internally Displaced People’s camps, hasbeen translated into 9 ethnic languages, and has around 120,000 active users
on a daily basis. Koe Koe Tech uses data from the app to map the needs ofpregnant women across the country, which provides invaluable informationfor outlining differences between geographic locations. Koe Koe Tech also
deeply values inclusivity and representation, with 95% of its staff being madeup of Myanmar nationals across a range of ethnic backgrounds, and 50% of
leadership positions within the country being held by women.
Read the full Koe Koe Tech case study on page 116

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The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Kyarlay
Online education for women on childcare
Kyarlay is an e-commerce platform for baby products that brings theconvenience of e-commerce to parents alongside transparent productinformation. Kyarlay also creates its own childcare content in partnershipwith leading paediatricians. For this free online content, Kyarlay mostly
targets pregnant women. Content includes tips such as recommendations
that mother and baby stay properly hydrated, and other small pieces of
information about pregnancy, Kyarlay sees this as an opportunity to sharevaluable information whilst also providing value to potential future customers.
Read the full Kyarlay case study on page 120

What does this tell us about how
entrepreneurship can address thisgender gap?

There is a clear need for increased access to maternal health information and services
for women in rural Myanmar given the percentage of maternal deaths occurring 42
days postpartum. This could be supported through digital platforms such as thosealready being provided by Koe Koe Tech. Additionally, mass text-messaging services
could be sent out to women registered as having given birth recently at local healthclinics. For example, automatic texts could be sent to new mothers with messages
such as “If you are experiencing symptoms ABC, make sure you see a doctor or go
to your local healthcare clinic immediately”. There could be opportunity here forhospitals, clinics, the Ministry of Health and digital service providers to collaborate
on ways to reach larger numbers of women across the country and improve healthinformation and communication services. Data collection and tracking of women who
may be in danger of injury related to recently giving birth could be enhanced. Similarly,
new mothers experiencing challenges in caring for newborn babies and their own
health may benefit from additional support in the form of information communication.
Remote care, such as the use of technology to provide video or phone consultations
with doctors, midwives, nurses and other healthcare practitioners, could be conducted
digitally and reach more women in rural areas. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic
in 2020, the transition of healthcare providers to online outreach services could
create opportunities for Myanmar as well as other countries around the world.
Improvements in health record management systems in hospitals and smaller clinics,
including follow-up with postpartum mothers during the crucial 42-day period could
be another opportunity area. Improved management of patient records could lead toincreased efficiency in service provision and allow for preventative measures to betaken in a more timely way. Again, this could allow for further data collection in the
public health sector, leading to more information being used to design solutions tounderlying causes of maternal and infant mortality in the rural areas of the country.

References
1

UNFPA, Ministry of Health and Sports (December 2018) National Maternal Death Surveillance and Response

2

Frontier Magazine (2018) Mental Health: Myanmar hidden epidemic

67

Time

The significant amount of time women spend on unpaid work, to fulfil
cultural expectations of women spending their time on domestic responsibilities, means that they do not have the freedom to have “free time”
from these responsibilities. Such free time could be spent on paid work,
study, or any other personal wants or needs. In this section we explore
women’s lack of time as different actors within the economy:
1) as entrepreneurs, and 2) as employees.
The fact that women are more likely than men to be participating in
unpaid labour means that there is a gender gap in the access that men
and women have to free time, or time that could be spent on earning
an income, as well as other activities. As entrepreneurs, women’s lackof free time may mean that they are not able to participate in businesstraining or support opportunities because they are juggling the responsibilities of managing an enterprise with managing a household andchildcare. Moreover, as potential employees, they may be held back fromentering the full-time, paid workforce if the majority of their time is spent
on family responsibilities that are not equally shared between genders.
This ultimately leads to male family members progressing in their careers
and up corporate ladders, whilst women fall behind. Lack of time to study,
or invest in personal or professional development, or participate in othercommunity and civic activities, can further exacerbate
inequality across dimensions.
The following section will explore how women as entrepreneurs andemployees impact the time dimension and will introduce the role ofentrepreneurship to help women have greater flexibility
and control of their time.

68

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The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Women as Entrepreneurs

In a recent IFC report focused on women entrepreneurs, it was reported that more thana third of women entrepreneurs (defined as those running their own business) started
the business due to requiring flexibility to take care of their family and / or household
duties1. This means that many female entrepreneurs may not actually be running theirown business by choice, but being unable to gain employment opportunities whichallow them to balance paid work and other responsibilities, nonetheless need to earn
an income. Starting a business, particularly a home-based enterprise or other form
which allows women to manage childcare whilst working, can sometimes be the only
option for those needing to have flexible working conditions.
Once a woman is running a business, however, another gender gap becomes apparent:
that between men’s and women’s access to business support services which would
enable enterprises to improve and / or scale. The ILO identifies a key constraint for
female entrepreneurs in Myanmar as limited access to gender-sensitive businessdevelopment support (BDS) services. This includes limited efforts by BDS service
providers to make their approach more gender-sensitive and specifically tailored
for women (informal support services being the main support services accessed by
women). It also points to a general lack of awareness amongst women entrepreneurs
in regard to the support that is available to them.
An ILO-SPF study found that, although entrepreneurship and business management
training is the most prevalent form of BDS service delivery in Myanmar, most women(75% of women surveyed) have never participated in any training programs, and only
6.3% of the surveyed entrepreneurs accessed professional business advice in thepast year2.
The key reasons that women reported not accessing entrepreneurship or business
management training programs included:•

Lack of information on available programs•

Lack of availability of programs in their geographical area•

Lack of time (mostly due to unpaid domestic work and family responsibilities)•

Lack of access to childcare (women are unable to find carers for their children to
allow them time to attend training)

Women as Employees

The previously discussed issue of girls dropping out of formal education in adolescencemeans that many of them may not return to education, or enter the paid workforce.
Once women are in the home, many remain as housewives. GSMA reported that 53%
of women surveyed in their 2016 report were not looking for work, versus only 7% ofmen. Instead, women reported occupying the position of housewife3.

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The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

In a survey (unpublished, but results shared with EME) conducted by Myanmar
Alliance for Transparency and Accountability (MATA), women’s time featured
prominently as a key reason for their lack of participation in training and “extra
curricular” workplace activities, both of which can be seen as helping individuals
achieve a promotion. The same study indicated that women’s unpaid burden is
double-edged. A woman’s requirements at home may prevent her from undertaking
paid work (such as garment work which has strict hours) and thereby restricts her
ability to earn an income. Secondly, the only way for women to reduce their unpaid
work is by paying another to do it, which means that in the event that women are
earning an income, they must still sacrifice some of it in order to free up time (childcare
is a typical example of this). In apparent recognition of this, studies from ADB and IFC
have recommended flexible workplace policies to support women3,5.
Figure 18

100%

Survey on Sharing in Household Chores

Survey responses to “Should men help women more in the household(i.e. looking after children, cooking etc.) to give women
more opportunities outside of the home”

50%

Female responders

0%
Yes

No

Male responders

In order to bridge the gender-gap in time equality, men must take an increased
share of paid work. Domestic responsibilities such as housework, childcare, care for
elderly parents or other family members, etc. will always exist. What must change isincreasing the balance between the amount of time male and female family members
spend on such work, in order to have a more equitable amount of time to focus onother activities (and to have the freedom and agency to decide what to do with thattime, whether it is paid work or other activities). In the MATA survey, 100 respondents
across Myanmar (50 men, 50 women) saw both sexes agreeing that men should domore to support “women’s work”. However, women agreed with this statement lessthan men (84% of women compared to 92% of men), and the women participants
were more likely to disagree with the statement (16% of women disagreed versus only
6% of men). The study concluded that, just as a great portion of women in Myanmar
accept being beaten can be justified, so, too, do some women accept their position in
the home so strongly as to indicate they would refuse help from their partner.
For those women who do become employed, the burden of family responsibilities
is more likely to prevent their advancement compared to men. IFC (2019) reported
that for 50% of employees, childcare responsibilities had at some time in their career
prevented them from attending a training course or completing their studies. Morethan twice as many women (68%) said they had experienced this situation comparedwith men (33%)6.

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The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Innovative businesses developing
solutions to address women’s time
constraints
Opportunities Now
Financial inclusion, entrepreneurship and financial literacy
training for women lead to improved incomes, agency andwomen’s economic empowerment
Opportunities Now (ONOW) is an example of an organisation in Myanmar
creating significant impact for the economic empowerment of women andgirls. ONOW as a service provider for financial institutions and development
agencies runs short entrepreneurship courses on women, alongside afinancial inclusion chatbot. By increasing livelihood opportunities and income
for women in rural areas, ONOW aims to increase women’s agency andeconomic empowerment, having trained 750 women to date and providing
startup capital to 400 female entrepreneurs. On average, an ONOW graduate
increases her income by 150 - 200%, which is typically contributed tohousehold and family expenses. ONOW reports that the women they workwith often increase their confidence and agency in decision-making, a key
indicator of empowerment.
ONOW also take a gender-sensitive approach to designing their programsaround the women’s lack of time to attend financial literacy and businesstraining services. For example, one target client group are female garment
factory workers, who are required to work 6 days per week. As Sundays istheir only day off, ONOW delivered training workshops on Sundays to ensure
the program participants did not need to request leave from their employers,
or risk losing income as a result of attending the training.
Read the full ONOW case study on page 128

Kyarlay
Providing same day delivery across Yangon for baby products
Kyarlay uses stores as fulfilment centres, making delivery more efficient. It
provides four hour delivery in Yangon, unheard of among most companies.
Recent data for 2020 shows that almost 90% of digital orders are placed by
women. The founders assume that this is because women already have a fullday without having to go back to the shop for diapers or other fast-sellingitems. Co-founder Ma Nang Mo noted that, if parents need diapers at short
notice, going to the shop and back can easily take 1-2 hours due to traffic andproduct availability.
Read the full Kyarlay case study on page 120

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The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

What does this tell us about how
entrepreneurship can address thisgender gap?
Inclusive Entrepreneurship Programs
Programs and support services designed to assist entrepreneurs need to be tailored
to provide gender-sensitive services. For example, delivering business training andconsulting services which take into account women’s constraints to commit to fulldays of training or being able to participate fully.
Creating an inclusive entrepreneurship program means taking into consideration
women’s schedules, and engaging them as key stakeholders to contribute towards
the design of support services they need, and the delivery model best suited to theirsituation. Providing flexible training programs and support services, such as childcare
services, working with families to encourage shared childcare responsibilities, or eventailoring training to be delivered in shorter sessions rather than intensive “bootcamp”
style training days, could further improve women’s ability to fully participate in suchprograms.

Creating Flexible Workplaces - both formen and women
Employers also have a role to play when educating both male and female staff
about the importance of flexible working conditions, and whether the infrastructure
at their company allows for both male and female employees to consider shareddomestic time burdens. For example, if a workplace offers parental leave which is thesame leave allowance for both male and female employees, would this encourage
employee retention from male employees, or childcare sharing responsibilities with
their partner? Although men may indicate that they agree with the need for shareddomestic responsibilities, they may sometimes be constrained as the higher income
earner. However, if the infrastructure within enterprises, organisations and public
sectors were to change to allow for more equal leave entitlements and flexible
working conditions, male employees may be further encouraged to participate indomestic tasks, without the fear of losing income.
Enterprises can create further opportunities for female employees by having flexible
workplaces which enable women to have time to focus on employment and career,such as childcare arrangements. MATA’s 2019 study recommends men and women“sharing the burden”, employers investing in childcare for employees, and creating
workplace environments which are sensitive to childcare. This could include raisingawareness for men to take more of the burden of unpaid household work; offering
per diems for childcare to enable women’s inclusion, and/or ensuring that workplacemeetings have facilities for women to be able to bring a carer and their child, in order
to be able to participate more fully.

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The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Both ADB and IFC recommend men and women sharing the burden of domestic
responsibilities, as well as companies investing in childcare for employees. ADB
recommends reducing the burden of unpaid work through investment in infrastructure
and public goods and services; the provision of women-friendly, time-saving domestic
appliances; and raising awareness on shared domestic responsibility between men
and women in the household4
IFC recommends that enterprises make a business case for childcare in the workplace;offer flexible working arrangements to suit childcare needs; ensure that training
schedules consider childcare responsibilities; establish on-site childcare services;and create peer support groups for parents within the business
Flexible working arrangements that meet women’s time burdens, such as part-time
opportunities and enhancing a “gig economy” are also options for changing work tomeet women’s ability to participate in the workforce. However, it should be noted thatsuch arrangements are a good first step, but do not take significant strides towards
increasing women’s ability to fully participate in paid work to the same extent asmen. They may, in fact, encourage more women to stay in jobs with lower working
hours, less responsibility and leadership opportunities, and casual jobs which are
not secure.

Opportunities for Industries: Childcare,Time-Saving Appliances, Women’s
Support Services
As enterprises take on recommendations to create more inclusive and flexible working
environments, this may open up further opportunities to enterprises in service
industries such as childcare, or products which are time-saving and marketed towards
women. If more workplaces begin offering childcare services, either on-site or as anadditional fringe benefit or allowance, for example, this creates further opportunities
for existing enterprises in this industry to consider alternative delivery models or
customer segments. Consider what opportunities could arise for a small childcare
agency aimed at providing on-site services for employees across a national franchise.
But startups need not wait for large corporations to create demand. Entrepreneursshould seek to identify where value can be created for parents, particularly women,that is greater than the costs of the service delivering it (such as competitively priced
childcare).

References
1,3,5,6 IFC (2019) Tackling Childcare: The Business Case for Employer-Supported Childcare in Myanmar

74

2

ILO-SPF (2020) National Assessment Of Women’s Entrepreneurship Development In Myanmar

4

ADB (2016) Gender Equality and Women’s Rights in Myanmar: A Situation Analysis

7

ADB (2016) Gender Equality and Women’s Rights in Myanmar: A Situation Analysis

Photo: Ulf Svane

75

Decision Making

In this section we discuss the importance of women’s agency; theirempowerment to make their own decisions – whether household orbusiness financial management; what they choose to study; what income
generating activities they decide to pursue, and more. This includes
discussing women’s decision-making power within different contexts andenvironments: 1) within the household, related to both small and large
financial decisions, 2) women’s decisions over their own bodies andaccess to healthcare, and 3) men’s views on whether it is acceptable forwomen to work outside of their household duties.
Although hard to quantify, decision-making is at the heart of women’s
empowerment. In order for women in Myanmar to experience genderequality across all sectors in civil society, they must have decision making
power over their own actions and lives. In Myanmar, like many countries
in SEA, women have financial decision-making power within theirhouseholds and own property as individuals or through co-ownershipwith a spouse or other relative. However, in this section we critically
discuss whether having decision-making power over everyday householdspending, which is typically gendered when related to domestic responsibilities such as childcare or cooking, is really having the agency to makelarger, meaningful decisions without the influence ofanother (typically male) relative.

76

77

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Big and Small Decisions
within the Household

Women possessing agency is crucial for them to be able to feel empowered to makedecisions that affect their everyday lives. Figure 19 indicates that Myanmar rankslowest in the SEA countries studied for women’s role in making “big” decisions
about their own health, major household purchases or visiting family. Relative tomajor household purchases, women are more likely to make decisions about theirown health or seeing their family. In fact Myanmar women rank highest across the SEA
countries in Figure 19 for making decisions to see their family. However, “highest” isstill just 37% of the time for “mainly the wife” making decisions to see her own family.
More alarming is women are only making their own decisions about their health 40%of the time.
While Myanmar has among the highest percentage of female headed households in
SEA (Figure 19), the percent is still considerably below equal at 23% (women makeup 51% of the population). Although women have equal property rights in theory, inpractice culture and tradition often favour men in land certification and inheritancepractices. For example, women may register a business in their husband’s name as
the household head, even though this isn’t a legal requirement.

Women’s Decisions regarding
their own Healthcare

According to the Myanmar Demographic and Health Survey 2015-16, men makedecisions over their wife’s health 14% of time in Myanmar households. This is arelatively low figure, compared to the 40% of women reported as the main decision
maker regards to their health (Figure 20). Nonetheless, it is startling that even 14%
of women do not have the agency to make decisions about their own health andit is unclear what the decision making process looks like for the 46% of the timethat neither men or women are leading decisions over the woman’s health. Women’s
apparent lack of autonomy over their health is particularly concerning noting thealarming statistics about maternal health discussed in the above Health section.

Figure 19

Indicators of Women’s Decision Making

100%

80%

Myanmar65%

60%

Cambodia
Indonesia
Lao PDR
Philippines

40%

20%

Thailand
Timor-Leste

23%

Vietnam2%0%Female headed households% of households with a female head

Women participatingin the three decisions

Own health car, major household purchases,
and visiting family - % of women age 15-49

78

Women who werefirst married by age 15% of women ages 20-24

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Figure 20

Decisions Made by Women

60%

50%

40%

40%

37%

Myanmar30%

Cambodia
Indonesia
Philippines

20%

19%

19%

Mainly Husband

Mainly Wife

Timor-Leste

14%

10%

10%

0%
Mainly Husband

Mainly Husband Mainly Wife
Decision maker about awoman's own health care
% of women age 15-49

Mainly Wife

Decision maker about a woman's
visits to her family or relatives% of women age 15-49

Decision maker about major
household purchases% of women age 15-49

Women in Myanmar are more likely to own a house or land alone than those in
Cambodia or Indonesia, but less likely than these neighbours to co-own a house orland with her husband (Figure 21). One interpretation of this data could be that womenappear to have more agency on their own than when sharing ownership with men.

Figure 21

Land and Property Ownership

60%

33%

30%

27%

26%

24%

21%

20%

18%
15%

0%
Women who
own land alone% of womenage 15-49

Men whoown land alone% of menage 15-49

Women who own
a house alone% of womenage 15-49
MyanmarMen who own
a house alone% of menage 15-49
Indonesia

Women who own
land jointly% of womenage 15-49
Cambodia

Men who own
land jointly% of menage 15-49

Women who own
a house jointly% of womenage 15-49

Men who own
a house jointly% of menage 15-49

Timor-Leste

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The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Men’s Influence on Women’s Work outside of
the Household
Myanmar also has one of the highest rates in SEA of men over 15 years of age (33%)
who agree that it is unacceptable for women to work, second only to Indonesia. This
represents a significant number of men who are communicating this belief to female
relatives, and potentially influencing their decision-making. A girl who grows up in ahousehold which fundamentally disagrees with her ability or right to have paid
employment may grow into a woman who either shares this belief, or does not havethe self-confidence or agency to actively pursue paid employment (Figure 22).

Figure 22

Men in SEA who find it unacceptable for women to work

Discriminatory work norms% of 15+ who agree it is unnacceptable for women to work

33%

MyanmarIndonesia
Thailand
Timor-Leste
Lao PDR
Malaysia
VietnamPhilippines
Cambodia
Singapore
0%

80

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Innovative businesses supporting women’s
decision making through their models
ONOW
Women’s Economic Empowerment = Agency
By providing financial literacy, financial capital, and entrepreneurship training
to women entrepreneurs in Myanmar, ONOW is increasing women’s agency
and decision-making power as they increase their incomes and their ability
to manage and make decisions about money. When women are recording
their expenses and have a greater understanding of money coming in andout of their business or household, they are more informed and empowered
to be able to make decisions related to financial management. Increased
confidence in managing money may also contribute to improved agency
and decision-making within both household and business, particularly whencommunicating or even negotiating with male relatives
regarding expenditure.
Read the full ONOW case study on page 128

Myanmar Women’s Self Defense Center
Creating Agency Through Confidence
MWSDC provides martial arts training to individual women, as well as sexual
harassment, law and sexuality training for individuals, corporations and NGOs
in Myanmar. The business was launched in response to the founder returning
to Myanmar and finding that many of her friends had parent-enforced
curfews, fearing for their daughters’ safety. MWSDC provides self-defense
training, but also much more, including training on legal rights and sexuality.
Some women taking part in MWSDC reported being able to go out andobtained permission from their parents to complete the course, indicating an
increase in the women’s confidence to make decisions that challenged
family dynamics.
Read the full Myanmar Women’s Self Defense Center case study on page 124

What does this tell us about how
entrepreneurship can address this gender gap?
Greater financial and digital inclusion can empower women to have the agency tomake their own decisions. Economic empowerment and improved digital skills canenhance women’s ability to earn an income, make decisions about finances, accessinformation and digital resources, and develop skills for employment. When usedeffectively, smartphones can open up a range of possibilities for women to increase
their knowledge and access to information, which can help them to make decisions.
For example, women who have access to digital health information may feel more
confident in making decisions about their own health and bodies, without having to
ask permission from husbands or other male relatives.

References
ILO-SPF (2020) National Assessment Of Women’s Entrepreneurship Development In Myanmar

81

Survey: Innovative Businesses
Addressing Gender Gaps

5

Photo: Doh Eain83

Survey: Innovative Businesses Addressing Gender Gaps

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

84

Survey:Innovative Businesses
Addressing Gender Gaps
Survey Methodology

Through expert interviews and a review of EME’s database of more than 300
enterprises, a target list of 40 companies was developed, of which 23 companies
were surveyed1. Interviews were carried out in person wherever possible or over thephone. Given the small sample size, this approach was considered the most efficientin securing responses and in ensuring surveyor comprehension. The interviews werecarried out in English or Burmese, with all data recorded in English. The data was thenassessed using standard spreadsheet tools for analysis.

Limitations

A sample size of 23 is too small to draw statistically representative conclusions fromand so the following findings should be considered in this light. While the sample size
is small, it is indicative of the burgeoning startup market in Myanmar. In developed
economies, venture capital companies might expect to meet 1,000 potential
investees in any given year; in Myanmar EME meets closer to 100 than 1,000 startups
annually. This study looked at innovative companies focusing on addressing theneeds of women and girls, which is naturally not 100% of active startups. Thus, the 23companies surveyed are still considered to be a significant share of the companies
that would match the criteria for inclusion in this research.

Photo: Doh Eain

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Results
Respondent Profile
Of the 23 companies surveyed, seven were founded before 2017, seven in 2017 andthe remaining nine over 2018-20. The average age of respondents was 31.4, although
the average at founding was 28.5. On average, 66% of their employees were womenand around 60% of leadership positions were filled by women. 17 companies were
women-founded and six men-founded. Companies founded by men had fewer womenin leadership (36% vs. 67%). In total these 23 companies employed 393 staff (237
women). On average, pre-seed companies employed 4.6 staff; seed 4.5, pre-series A,
12.8 and series A and B combined an average of 32.
A diverse range of sectors was included, which can broadly be categorised into health,education, apparel, and digital services. There were eight pre-seed companies; sixseed stage; six pre-series A; 2 series A; and 1 Series B. The distribution of stages
is likely to be an indication of the overall stage of the market as well. Across many
sectors, the companies were further classified as service-based, product-based or
marketplace.

Founding Motivation
The survey included two multiple choice questions directed at the reasons forfounding the enterprise in question: “Why did you start this business?” and “Why
did you start this type of business?” with the former offering responses related tonon-social factors (such as "I saw an opportunity for a profitable business"). An"other" option was also provided. Without a ready multiple choice answer prompting
social reasons for founding, 48% of respondents selected Other and clarified withsocial reasons. When the responses included "I saw a social or environmental issue
I could solve," 95% of respondents selected it. 57% of founders stated their business
was specifically founded to address issues faced by women or girls. Of the 13 thatmade up the 57%, four were men (67% of men surveyed) and nine were women (53%of women surveyed) (Figure 23).
The results indicate that women-founded businesses have more women in leadership
positions and businesses that target women as customers have more women in
leadership positions, whether they are founded by men or women (Figure 24).

Figure 23

Motivation for Founding Company

Figure 24% of women in leadership by founderand gender of target customer

Founding Motivation% of respondents by gender% of Female Founders% of Male Founders

Company Founders and Customers by Gender% of All Founders

100%
80%

Female Founders

Male Founders

80%

60%

60%

40%
40%

20%

20%
0%
Founders creating
businesses tospecifically serve
women / girls

Founders selecting social Founders who selected
reasons for founding "other" and provided social
when provided this as a reasons for founding themultiple choice option
business when social
reasons not provided
for in mulitple choice0%Company Targets
Women

Company Targets
Both Genders

85

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Focus on Women
Respondents were asked how women were included within their business model.
Options included as customers, as employees and as suppliers and answers that
included more than one option were accepted. Headline results show 90% companies
consider their business positively impacts women as customers, 60% impact womenas employees and 30% impact women within the supply chain. Figure 25 shows
further breakdown of this trend, indicating how the business is benefiting women
depending on the type of business model (service, marketplace or product-based
business models). Women are most likely to be included as employees in the service
sector, within the supply chain in product-based businesses and as customers ofmarketplace businesses.
Figure 25

How are Women Served within the Business?

How are women included by the business?
Supply Chain

Marketplace
Product
Service

Employees

Marketplace
Product
Service

Customers

Percent of companies in specific classification

Marketplace
Product
Service
0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Challenges and Opportunities of being
women-focused
70% of respondents considered that their focus on women or girls gave them anadvantage over other businesses in their industry (Figure 26). One respondent said,“Being a women founder, it is good to manage women employees, and know thepreference of women”. 85% of respondents indicated that they considered both men
and women that they interacted with through the business were supportive of theirbusiness’ focus on women’s inclusion, while three respondents said only women
were supportive. When asked about challenges and opportunities, the respondents
were given the following choices and asked to select those that apply: marketing,sales, branding, employment and recruitment, better understanding of the customer,or other. Sales, marketing, and branding were listed the highest as challenges(average of 36% of respondents). However, more often the respondents named these
topics as opportunity areas (70%) (Figure 26). Interestingly, no respondents indicatedthat they faced challenges or gained opportunities surrounding understanding
their customers
Figure 26

Challenge or Opportunities in being Women-Focused

80%60%Marketing
Branding

40%

Sales
Employment & Recruitment

20%
0%

86

Challenge
n=14

Opportunities
n=19

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Capital Financing
The most common form of startup capital was family and friends (65%) or own income
or savings (61%). In terms of formal financing, equity was the most common both forstartup capital (17%) and follow-on funding (22%) (Figure 27). Notably, all respondents
who had received debt had also received equity investment. Grants and prize money
were as common as debt when aggregated across startup and follow-on capital,
although more popular in terms of startup capital (9%). As a frontier economy,
Myanmar does not offer much liquidity for equity investments. However, debt fromfinancial institutions requires collateral and debt as investment is not a popular formof financing for young startups with limited turnover.
Figure 27

Sources of Startup Capital

Types of funding received
Friends, Family
Own income/savings
EquityGrant, Prize
Debt
Crowd Funding
0%

10%

20%
Start-up Capital

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

After Start-up Capital

Startup capital is dominated by the founders’ own savings and income or money fromfamily and friends, with a combined average of 77% across companies between
Pre-Seed – Series-A reporting this startup funding type. Equity was the second-most
popular source of startup capital at an average of 10% although only companies at
Pre-Seed, Seed and Pre-Series A reported having had equity finance to start theirbusinesses. Grants accounted for 5% of startup capital and was limited to companies
at Pre-Seed and Seed stage. Debt and crowd funding (from international sources)were mentioned just once each. Figure 28 shows the distribution of startup capital by
the stage of the companies surveyed.
Figure 28

Capital Funding by Stages of Company

100%
80%
60%
40%
20%
0%

Seed

Pre-Seed
EquityFriends, Family

Pre-Series A
Savings, Income

Grant

Series-A
Crowd

Debt

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The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

When looking at capital raised outside of startup funding, the results across equity,
debt and grant funding were extremely close. (Figure 29) Discussion during interviews
indicated that grants often came from accelerator or pitch competitions in the form ofprizes, while debt was often convertible debt (i.e. the creditor had the option toconvert the debt into equity in the company at a later point in time). Government
grants were not mentioned, nor were debts from banking institutions. Banking
institutions in Myanmar require collateral for credit and young companies often pose
more risk than a traditional bank is willing to lend against. While seed-stage in thechart below is dominated by debt, these findings are unlikely to be in keeping withfinancing of seed-stage companies in Myanmar (Figure 29). A review of publicannouncements of seed-stage investments shows this to be dominated byequity investments.
Figure 29

Follow-On Capital

100%

80%

60%

40%

20%

0%

Pre-Seed

Seed

Pre-Series A
EquityDebt

Series-A

Series-B

Grant

When investigating whether funding type changes depending on the company focus
or gender of the founder, the small sample size has its limitations. However, while
male-founded businesses represent 26% of respondents, they represent 60% of
equity financed and 33% of equity and grant financed companies (Figure 30).
Figure 30

Funding Type by Founder Gender and Company Gender Focus (% of funding type)

Personal, Friends, Family

Grant
Female Founders [17]Male Founders [6]Equity, Grant

Equity

0%

88

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Financial Management
The survey asked whether the companies had financial projections, and whether they
had someone responsible for financial management in the company aside from thefounders. 48% of companies did have either a head of finance, CFO or accountant,while 52% of founders stated they managed finances themselves. The results
show having someone responsible for financial management doesn’t increase thelikelihood of having financial projections; 64% of respondents with a head of financeor equivalent had financial projections, versus 75% of businesses without any formal
staff role for financial management. Figure 31 illustrates the share of companies withfinancial controllers by company stage.
48% of respondents had a financial manager or similar financial controller and thispercentage changed little across stages, except at Series B stage – noting that there
was only one series B company (Figure 31). 50% of pre-seed, Pre-series A and Series
A companies reported having a financial controller as well as 33% of seed stage
companies. 66% of companies that had raised equity had a financial controller, 40%of companies without any formal financing had financial controllers, and just one ofthree companies funded solely with grants had a financial controller. Of thosecompanies that had received formal financing, 92% reported having business plans
and financial projections. Companies without formal financing were less likely tohave business plans and financial projections (60% without formal funding had
financial projection). Typically, a clear business plan and at least some financial
projections is a prerequisite to formal financing. In the event a company was withouta clear business plan, an investor or grant program may help them to formulate one.
Figure 31

Respondents who have a financial controller
100%

10
9
8

80%

7
6

60%

5
40%

4
3

20%

2
1

0%

0
Pre-Seed

Seed

Pre-Series A% with accountant / Head of Finance / CFO (Left Axis)

Series - A

Series - B

Count of respondents in group (Right Axis)

Financial Performance
Respondents were asked for their annual turnover as well as recent revenue
performance but, given the small sample size, this data has not been presented toensure some anonymity among respondents. Across the 22 respondents, 36% statedthey were not cash flow positive, while the remaining 64% said their businesses
were cash flow positive. The survey did not confirm these responses with data.
Respondents were asked about their monthly operating costs in order to gauge thesize of the companies at each stage. Note that on average, a founder in the pre-seed
to pre-series A stage only takes a full salary 35% of the time and a partial salary 10%of the time. Therefore, the costs in figure 32 do not fully reflect the labour investedby the founder.

89

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Figure 32

Average Annual Cost of a Startup (USD)$148,000$42,398$22,057

Pre-Seed (n=7)

Seed (n=5)

Pre-Series A (n=3)

Adjusting the responses by the weighted average of male founded and female
founded groups indicates that, of the survey respondents, men were significantly
more likely to take a salary than women (Figure 33). Equity backed companies tended
to pay themselves a salary more often than personal, friend and family
backed companies.
Figure 33

Likelihood of Founder Taking a Salary% Likelihood of founder at each stage taking a salary
Personal,
Friends,
Family
Grant

Yes
No

Yes
Project-based

Yes

Equity, Grant

No

Yes

EquityNot Living Wage
0%

10%

20%

30%

% of Male Founders

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

% of Female Founders

GrowthRespondents were asked to provide details of their staff headcount (full time staff)
for recent years. While changes in headcount may not indicate success, a clear
strategy or sound business model, it is a simple expression of growth in the absolute
size of the company measured by those it employs. The results show a correlation
90

80%

100%

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

between having formal financing and increased growth in headcount, specifically
growth among those who raised equity (noting only one company reported raisingdebt without also having raised equity). Given that these companies tend to raise
capital to expand their business, these findings are not alarming. The survey did
not ask for detailed funding information, and as such it is not possible to compare
growth relative to the distance in time from raising capital. Companies without formal
funding still showed growth, although modest in comparison to those raising equity.
Figure 34 assesses respondents by their funding stage and shows that Series A and
Series B companies added the highest number of staff in both 2019 and 2020.
Pre-seed companies tend to be testing approaches while the other two groups below
would be building on top of a model that indicates success. As such, these resultsappear to indicate the natural startup cycle taking place among respondentcompanies. Series A and B are combined in the chart below due to their slight number.
Figure 34

Average Headcount Increase by Stage

Pre-Seed
N=8

Seed
N=6

Pre-Series A
N=6Series A and Series B
N=3

0

5

10

Average Headcount increase 201915
Average Headcount increase 2020

20

25

While later-stage companies in the survey added the most staff in terms of count, thepercentage increase is still highest among the earlier stages – relative growth isfaster from a smaller base. Seed companies added an average of 5.25 staff in 2019
compared to 2018, representing a 115% increase (Figure 35).
Figure 35

Average Headcount Increase by Stage (%)

Pre-Seed
N=8

Seed
N=6

Pre-Series A
N=6Series A and Series B
N=3

0%

20%

40%

60%

2018-2019 YoY

2019-2020 YoY

80%

100%

120%

Impact Measurement
24% of respondents had a formal theory of change. 95% of respondents indicatedthat they had founded their business to address a social issue, yet only 60% said thatthey measured impact by any means. However, impact measurement itself tended to91The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

be either highly quantitative (i.e. number of customers served) or highly anecdotal(i.e. asking some customers / employees). There was little indication of a combined
approach to measure the depth and breadth of impact, which may help companies
fine-tune their approaches and their service / product offerings as well as enhancetheir impact over time (Figure 36).
Figure 36

Proportion of companies measuring impact

Has ToC or
measure impact

No ToC but
measure impact
by other means

Has ToC

0%

20%

10%

30%
% of Male Founders

Total

40%

50%

60%

70%

% of Female Founders

Impact Measurement and Growth
Those companies with a theory of change experienced the most growth in headcountbetween 2018-2020 (Figure 37). This was followed by those companies with nomeasurement. Informal measurement companies showed the least growth. Of thecompanies that did not measure impact, 62% were Seed stage companies. 80% of
Seed stage companies surveyed did not measure impact. Removing the seed stage
companies from the analysis allows a clearer comparison among other types(Figure 38).
Figure 37

Company Headcount Growth 2018-2020 by Whether Impact is Measured

Measures impact informally(without ToC)
N = 10

Doesn’t measure
N=8

Has a theory of change
N=5

0%

92

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

120%

140%

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Figure 38

Company Headcount Growth 2018-2020 by Whether Impact is Measured (excludes Seed Stage)

Doesn’t measure
N=3

Measures impact informally(without ToC)
N=9

Has a theory of change
N=5

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

120%

140%

Challenges and Support
Respondents were asked to state their biggest challenges as well as their solutions to
overcome these challenges. These were open-ended questions that have been
categorised in order to allow for ranking across the group. Execution ranked as thehighest individual item (29% of responses), although human resources as a topic was
the most popular (48% of responses) (Figure 39). Execution in this instance included:
managing the organization as it grows; not having enough time / skill for execution;building the brand; trying to understand the needs of rurally-based women; broadcompetitor & pricing problem; product quality and building trust with customers. Eachof these could be further categorised; however, each can be understood as generalbusiness services support required for the sound execution of the company activities.
Figure 39

Respondents’ Biggest Challenges (% of responses)

Execution

Capital requirements

HR - Talent Retention
HR - Unspecified

HR - Ability / Productivity
0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

Respondents were then asked about the support they required to overcome theirchallenges, once again with an open-ended question. Answers have been categorised
to allow for quantification of the given solutions (Figure 40). The most popular
responses revolved around capital and mentorship / technical assistance. Examples
within this category include: advice on operations management; consultation fromexperts; help to hire the CTO; and expert led on-the-job training.

93

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Figure 40

Support Needed to Overcome Challenge

Mentorship/ Technical
Assistance
CapitalTraining to address
HR needs
Gov’t support
0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

When reviewing the open-ended responses by company stage, it is clear that pre-seedstage companies account for the largest share of execution related support. Seedstage companies combined with pre-series A stage account for 100% of the capitalrequirements category. On the other hand, human resources are more equally sharedacross each category (Figure 41).
Figure 41

Share of Responses to an Open-Ended Question Regarding Support

100%
80%
Capital requirements

60%

HR
40%

Execution

20%
0%

Pre-Seed

Seed

Pre-Series A

Series-A

Series-B

Respondents were also asked to select and rank their choices of between 1-5 (1 being
low and 5 being high) for support to reach their business goals (Figure 42). The resultscorrespond reasonably closely to the qualitative responses given around support:
capital is ranked first, but a close second is links to other markets – something thatengaged investors and / or mentors tend to provide. Someone to get advice fromand help with managing the business, along with a supportive peer group wereranked next; all of which would likely be covered within a supportive accelerator or
incubation program and / or mentorship programs.
The weighted averages of responses for men and women are included in Figure 43.
It is quite clear that the women surveyed requested more support in general / acrosseach area. The largest imbalance between women and men occurs when requesting
business training, access to capital and financial management training.

94

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Figure 42

Selected Areas of Support to Reach Business Goals
Aggregate of 1-5 scores; higher scores indicates stronger positive response

Access to financial capital

59

Link to other markets

55
39

A supportive peer group
Someone I can talk to and get advice from36

Help with managing the business

36

Financial management training

32

Business training

32

Figure 43

Female Founders
Male Founders

23

A supportive family

Support Desired by Gender (Weighted for gender)
Female Founders

Male Founders

100%
80%
60%
40%
20%
0%

A supportive
familyA supportive
peer group

Access tofinancial capitalBusiness training

Financialmanagement
training

Help withmanaging
the business

Link to othermarkets

Someone I cantalk to and get
advice from

The responses to the support desired across stages shows that access to capital andaccess to other markets is ranked highest among pre-series A companies, followed
by Series A and then Seed stage companies. In fact, Pre-series A and Series-A
companies score highest in weighted absolute terms across all support indicators,
potentially illustrating an increased awareness of needs compared to other
respondents (Figure 44).
Figure 44

Distribution of Support by Company Stage (Weighted by Company Stage)

100%
80%
Pre-Seed

60%

Seed
40%

Pre-Series A
Series-A

20%
0%

Series-B
A supportive
familyA supportive
peer group

Businesstraining

Someone I cantalk to andget advice from

Help withmanaging
the business

Financialmanagement
training

Link to other Access to financial
marketcapitalReferences
1

Some companies in the initial list have since closed, others were unavailable.

95

Case Studies

6

Photo: Doh Eain

97

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Case Studies

Case Studies of Startups
Working Toward
Closing Gender Gaps
in Myanmar

98

Photo: Doh Eain

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Survey Methodology

Semi-structured interviews were held with ten startup founders. These interviews
lasted between 1-2 hours and sought to answer the following broad topics:•

Founding background of the company and founder•Business model and approach to the problems being solved•

Traction to-date and plans for the future of the business•

Key challenges and constraints and support most favoured

Heat Map

The researchers scored each company in line with SPF’s seven gender dimensions(Figure 1). The scoring methodology was based on a points ranking system low (0) tohigh (5) (Figure 45). Points were allocated by the researcher according to whether thegender dimension was:5) Within core value proposition
4) Within value proposition of one or more products
3) Tertiary but intentional
2) Tertiary and unintentional
1) Potential but unconfirmed0) Not relevant
Figure 45

Startups’ Scores along SPF's Seven Gender Dimensions of Women’s Empowerment Framework
360ed

Doh Eain

Ezay

How SheDid itKoeKoeTech

Kyarlay

MWSDC

ONOW
Myanmar

YangonBroom

ZigWayEconomic
Empowerment

Personal Safety
and Mobility

FormalRepresentation

Education

HealthTime

Decision Making

99

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

360ed
360ed is modernising Myanmar education, including
reproductive education, and removing gender norms fromeducation materials as it does so.
Stage: Series A

YearFoundedTotal Numberof Employees

100

360ed

2016

82

Percentage
Women

Leadership
Filled by Women

50%

>50%

Business Model

Future Plans

Biggest Challenge

Development and sale ofeducation materials andaugmented reality companion
mobile applications

Scale up sales of existingproducts internationally,
add new products including
teacher training

Technical talent acquisition

Gender Gap Recap
While Myanmar has achieved gender parity in education at a macro level, this doesn’ttranslate to jobs where men still take leading roles
Women in Myanmar are less likely than men to consider
that they need a smartphone

Research carried out by the
Burnet Institute indicated that up to33%

of girls skipped school due toembarrassment surrounding menstruation

Founding:Founded by Hla Hla Win, 360ed uses augmented
reality to interactive learning to the classroom
360ed’s founder and CEO, Ma Hla Hla Win, was inspired by her daughter tocreate the ed-tech startup. Hla Hla Win has a background as an English teacher
and returned to Myanmar in 2016 after studying in the US. Around this time, herdaughter said she wanted to be a boy, because boys had the important jobs.
In response, Hla Hla Win created a storybook about a young girl becoming anastronaut. Later, this story would feature as an augmented reality demonstration
at a children’s literature fair. When the colour copies of the books ran out, black
and white ones were made; the AR app recognised shapes, not colours so children
could still see the colourful images on their smartphones. A comment from a teacher
about this approach making black and white school textbooks more interesting tochildren laid the foundation for what would become 360ed.

“it’s important to have a strong private sector
that can work with government and development
organisations to help ensure Myanmar focuses onsustainable education solutions”

Business Model:
360ed partners closely with government anddevelopment partners to create educational
products for a range of subject matters
360ed is a private company providing services and products to government andnongovernmental organisations. The company has a team of software engineers
and instructional learning designers who are, combined, adept at creating digitallearning experiences. 360ed offers some courses it has developed on its own
accord, such as English language which it is beginning to export to Asian and
African countries, as well as courses developed in partnership with government andaid agencies. A recent project with UNFPA led to the app and storybooks “Bay King”(which translates to “free from danger”) that teaches male and female adolescents
about human biology and reproduction, which are subjects teachers report finding
difficult to teach 1,2. Hla Hla Win explained the nature of 360ed’s work as supporting
the government in a manner similar to public private partnerships (PPPs) acrossthe world. In developing countries there are often also development programmes
supporting education and 360ed aims to work with them in a collaborative way;“it’s important to have a strong private sector that can work with governmentand development organisations to help ensure Myanmar focuses on sustainableeducation solutions” said Hla Hla Win.

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

360ed’s Grade 10 Science products include each Biology, Physics and Chemistry.

Impact for Women and Girls:
Through meaningful leadership andgender-sensitive development, 360ed is
inspiring women and girls in Myanmar
360ed is not just closing gender gaps in education but also in its leadershipand representation of women. Hla Hla Win recognises her position as awoman in tech, and a founder / CEO especially. While she aims to inspire
women through public speaking, she makes a point to decline panel events
that fail to have at least one other woman. Hla Hla Win told us,“If I’m invited to a panel with three men andI’m the only woman, I have a responsibility
to ensure my fellow women are also being
represented”.
Around 50% of students using 360ed are likely to be female, so thecompany is also supporting the learning of over half a million Myanmar
girls 3. 360ed takes a purposeful approach when it comes to designing
materials for the classroom, where traditional textbooks still encourage
traditional gender norms. The majority of leadership positions at 360ed
are held by women and this counts too for the education development anddesign teams (both of which are 80% female and managed by women).
Hla Hla Win makes certain to ensure that these teams provide a balanced
gender perspective throughout their work. One such example was when
360ed developed materials in a partnership between JICA and the Ministryof Education, where the company led the redevelopment of both textbook
and a companion mobile application with the specific aim of removing
traditional gender stereotypes.

102

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Future:360ed has built a team and a suite of products by servicing government and development partner
contracts, now they are aiming to sell these products to education partners internationallySince founding, 360ed has worked with the Myanmar
Ministry for Education, UNFPA, JICA and others
and also took part in SPRING Accelerator. Acrossthese projects, the company has developed a suiteof products across sciences, English learning andsexual reproductive health. The products consistof a box of flashcards which are matched to themobile application which, using the phone’s camera,
recognises the cards and brings them to life withthree-dimensional graphics. Having garnered successin Myanmar, with contracts reportedly serving overa million students, 360ed is now branching out
internationally. In addition to expanding its salesof core products, the company is also interested
in helping use its technology to engage in teacher
training. With experience in the Myanmar classroom
and running a large tech company, Hla Hla Win
could be just the person to help teachers take new
approaches with technology.

Challenges and Support:

As 360ed grows and updates its applications, the company hopes to use data to close gender gaps. To
reach its goals, 360ed is seeking funding, market linkages and training for technical staff.

With 82 staff members, many of which are technicallytrained, 360ed is cognisant that finding a continuous
flow of skilled talent could be a barrier to their ongoingsaleability. When discussing possible solutions toa dearth of technical staff the company suggested
more training opportunities either for employees of
the company or more generally within Myanmar. As
360ed begins to become an international company,
its target is to reach saleable economics to breakeven
and in time, turn a profit. Reaching international
markets will require linkages, although it is notablethat 360ed is already receiving some enquiries fromother SEA countries, other parts of Asia and as far as
Africa. Having raised grants, debt and equity financein the past, the company is now seeking to raise
further equity rounds, securing investors that want tohelp support youth, gender and education.
360ed’s approach of selling to government anddevelopment organisations has worked well in
Myanmar and reaching over a million students is nosmall feat, continuing in this path could see Hla Hla
Win reach her ambition for 360 to become “a platform
for global learners”.

References1

One teacher reported “…I prefer sexual education happens naturally. I don’t
want to teach them at schools. Society struggles with sexuality education amid
ambivalence, Myanmar Times, 2017.

2

Adolescent girls score just 50% of reproductive health questions correctly,
Burnette Institute, 2018

3

360ed is in the process of building in gender disaggregation in theirapplications, these figures are estimates based on macro data of enrolment anddemographics.

103

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Doh Eain
Doh Ean actively involves women and girls in their local
redevelopment planning, helping create public spacesthat serve women and girls.
Stage: Series A

YearFoundedTotal Numberof Employees

2017

32

Percentage
Women

Leadership
Filled by Women

65%

60%

Business Model

Future Plans

Biggest Challenge

Restoration and developmentof heritage projects and safe
community spaces

Continued expansion withincore services

Talent acquisition

104

Doh Eain

Gender Gap Recap
The World Bank Entrepreneurship Survey shows that
Women in
Myanmar make up

andData from Ministryof Labor lists only
In Myanmar,

35%
41%
29%
3%
31%

of the owners
with business,of management,of directorships.
of Myanmar conglomerates withfemale CEOs.
of women don’t feel safe incommunity areas.

Founding:Doh Eain felt like a natural transition forgovernance consultant Emilie Röell andrepresented a way to make changes
on the ground in Yangon, Myanmar’scommercial capital
Emilie Röell founded Doh Eain in 2017 after having lived and worked in
Yangon for four years. Röell’s previous post had been as a Democratic
Governance Consultant, during which she worked closely on local
governance including researching the role of women in governance.
Having developed experience in understanding people’s participationin public administration, Röell saw Doh Eain as a means to build on
her knowledge of participatory processes in a practical way: Doh
Eain involves the community in improving public spaces. According to
Röell, in 2016-17 there was space in Yangon for a focus on restoration
projects, and Doh Ein was a means to “roll up our sleeves and get started
reshaping and improving public and heritage spaces in Yangon”.

Business Model:
Doh Eain has three core revenue streams:
heritage homes, heritage restoration andcommunity spaces. It was community
spaces that enhanced Doh Eain’s inclusive
approach – ensuring all community voices
were heard.
Doh Eain refurbishes and restores homes and finds tenants, providing
loans to landlords for the work and charging a fee on the increased rentals
available after work is completed. They are also contracted for restorationand design services for commercial properties, and they design and develop
public spaces. In late 2017, Röell noticed that only men in the community
would come to meetings about developments; women would either notattend or say very little if they did attend. Around the same time, SPRING
Accelerator came to Myanmar and Doh Eain participated, improving theirsystems for women’s inclusion as they did so 1.

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Impact for Women and Girls:
Including women is central to the workthat Doh Eain carries out in the community.
This is contributing to safe spaces for
women in Yangon.
When women are not part of the planning of public spaces, these spaces
tend to favour men and Röell had noticed that they were not capturing
women’s voices in their planning processes due to lack of attendance
or involvement from women. During and following Doh Eain’s inclusion
in SPRING Accelerator, Röell dissected the entire process during thescoping, planning and implementation phases of their projects in orderto rebuild these processes with a focus on women and girls’ inclusion.
This began with reviewing the site for development and considering how
to serve women – such as public parks which attract more women when
they are broken up into various activity areas 2. More areas allow forsmaller groups to form, whereas one open area tends to be occupied bya large group of men, which women find intimidating.
Doh Eain then would typically set up a co-design committee for the public
space, consisting of entirely women or at least ensuring that women
have a voice in the committee. Each project would have a committeethat would oversee the planning and development of the space. Röell
explained that, when planning for girls to take part in the committee, it
was essential to begin with the parents. Doh Eain did this by drawing
attention to the benefits of their inclusion, such as education andskills building.

"Inclusion in the committee has had theadded benefits of increasing the
girls’ confidence"
she said. These findings were corroborated by SPRING’s evaluation reportwhich noted that the girls: develop skills, gain a voice, spend more timeoutside the house, and develop ownership3.
106The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Future:Yangon remains a city with many opportunities for Doh Eain to create meaningful change for its
residents, businesses and visitors, and the company intends to continue renewing the city.
Since its founding, Doh Eain has made a noticeable
impact on Yangon. To-date the company hascompleted 13 public spaces with four moreongoing, all of which are designed to be safe forwomen and girls.
Yangon is a fast-developing city with manycolonial buildings, and Doh Eain is unique in its
gender-inclusive approach to urban planningand development. For these reasons, Röell notesthat Doh Eain will continue to grow the teamand take on an expanding number of projects
across the city. Doh Eain is naturally involved at
a local governance level and could take on morepolicy-level work. However, Röell reminds usthat their ability to action changes on the ground
requires complex execution, which is a unique
skill set in the company and one she intends tocontinue to leverage to renew Yangon.

Doh Eain works closely with NGOs and local
governments, as stakeholders and at times
clients in their work. According to Röell, being thecommercial enterprise in this government-NGO-enterprise trinity is suited to Doh Eain’s missionof implementing change on the ground: as acompany it can move quickly, unburdened bybureaucracy. Röell also notes that the focus on
women and girls has become an integral part ofDoh Eain’s work and differentiates the company
from other developers. She sees this as anadvantage as the business continues to expand.
The aim is to continue as a commercial vehicle
and become financially sustainable, rather thanprofitable. Funding to-date, including grants,
equity and convertible loans, has come from a
range of philanthropic sources.

Challenges & Support:

As a technical company, designing and developing the built environment, Doh Eain requires talent togrow; having grown quickly they have to constantly strike a balance between strategy and execution.
Taking an inclusive approach to development
planning of public spaces requires significant
expertise in stakeholder management. Similarly,
the execution of any project requiring a rangeof physical labourers, materials and designers
understandably requires skills in execution andproject management. For Doh Eain, this means thatgrowth is restricted to their ability to continuously
find and retain top talent. As university courses
and other education in the area of integrated town
planning, urban design, landscape design andrestoration currently doesn’t exist in Myanmar
they find it difficult to bring on the innovative andtechnically strong architects they require.

Doh Eain has received several professional
volunteers, besides participating in SPRING
Accelerator. The message across theseexperiences is clear: highly experienced
professionals who have time to invest are
extremely valuable. Conversely, short-term interns
are less helpful because it takes a few weeks for
an intern to settle in and a few more weeks before
they understand how to add value. Doh Eain has
benefitted from volunteers from Moving Worlds,
a website that matches experts and founders toscale social impact in developing countries, andfound this approach quite successful to-date.

References
1

SPRING Accelerator was a multi-donor accelerator program which specificallyhelped businesses improving the lives of women and girls.

2

Example given by Doh Eain; also raised in Invisible Women(Criado-Perez, C; 2019)3

Presented to EME during the case study research

107

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Ezay
Ezay provides stock delivery for rural “mom and pop”
shops, which are typically women-run (~80%) and helps
them use a mobile app with which they can track theirbusiness sales and access inventory finance.
Stage: Seed

Year
FoundedTotal Numberof Employees

2019

Percentage
Women

27

Leadership
Filled by Women

33%

0%

Business Model

Future Plans

Biggest Challenge

Rural e-commerce platformand delivery

Expand nationwide

Identifying strategic
growth capital

Gender Gap Recap

108

Ezay

There is gender parity between men and women interms of percent self-employed,

but men are almost
Among phone-owners, men and womenare as likely as one another to have asmartphone; but men are
Women are roughly

3×more likely to have
employees than women.

29%

more likely to own a phone at all.

1/2

as likely to have a mobile money
account than men.

Founding:Founder Kyaw Min Swe launched Ezay
to solve logistics for shop-restocking
in rural Myanmar - a problem that his
sister, a shopkeeper, had experienced formany years
Kyaw Min Swe was previously a senior director at the Myanmar travelcompany, Oway, where he led the development of Oway Ride, aride-sharing platform, in Mandalay. Prior to Oway his experience included
logistics and retail, gained in Myanmar and Singapore. Kyaw Min Swe(KMS) is from a small township close to Yangon. His sister is a shopkeeperof a mom’n’pop shop (i.e. a small retailer, typically an unregisteredbusiness) in this township. To get stock for the shop, KMS’ sister would
ask her husband to go to the wholesaler but to do so her husband would
need to take time off of work. Going to the wholesaler herself would
require transport she didn’t have and closing the shop even if she could.
Especially in rural areas, men tend to own the transport and women often
don’t like to go to town alone for fear of their safety. KMS launched Ezay
to connect retailers like his sister to wholesalers and provide delivery in
between the two.

Business Model:
Ezay is a marketplace which connects
retailers to wholesalers and which also
provides delivery
Ezay’s business model involves registration of mom’n’pop shops on his
platform and working with wholesalers to list their goods on the same platform.
Shopkeepers can then browse stock and place orders, which Ezay facilitatesand delivers. Ezay makes a commission on the sales across the platform
and charges for the delivery. More recently, Ezay has also been piloting how
to provide credit to shopkeepers, who may be indebted to one particularwholesaler and therefore limited in stock or unfavourable prices; or who simply
want to expand the size of their stores. Rural shops are often far away from MFI
networks and have poor recording, but with Ezay ordering they can track allreorders and provide MFIs with an estimated income they need to assess theloan. Ezay’s initial value proposition, of providing easier access to restocking
goods among women shopkeepers, has led to the company growing to over
1,600 retailers on the platform since launching in October 2019.

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Impact for Women and Girls:

Women make up 95% of Ezay’s customers
and Ezay provides digital literacy training
so they can use the app. They have also
set up a call centre, and are beginning toprovide financial services.
KMS launched Ezay to solve a problem his sister was facing and one he knew
other women in Myanmar were also experiencing. Indeed his assumptions andresearch are validated by 95% of his customers being women shopkeepers.

These 1,500+ women are receiving
digital literacy training as part ofEzay’s activation process.
Ezay helps women download the app and understand how to use it. The
company also has a call centre for when customers need remote support to go
through the steps in the app. Ezay’s app also keeps track of order informationand the company hopes that this will help shopkeepers to better understandtheir top selling items - and later even their best margin items. Because
Ezay collects sales data, it’s also possible for financiers to understand the
shopkeepers ability to repay loans. Ezay is currently piloting providing accessto finance, with shopkeepers able to take “Ezay Credit” to expand their stock.
By providing credit over cash, Ezay can ensure that funds are used responsibly/ within the business.

110

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Future:Ezay recently closed its seed round and is expanding its model across 2020 with a long term target ofcovering the country’s estimated 300,000 rural mom’n’pop shops
Having developed a network of over 1,600 retailers
in around 3-4 months, Ezay has plans to continue
growing at a brisk pace. With seed funding in thebank, the company is planning to reach 8,000
retailers by the end of 2020. Assuming that 95% ofEzay’s customers remain to be women, that’s up to7,600 women each who will receive at least someform of digital literacy training. As the company
expands, it is also intending to widen its financial
services offerings by partnering with leading
microfinance institutions. Its aim is that all Ezay
customers will have the opportunity to apply forcredit with which to grow their business.

Currently, only around 25% of Ezay’s customers
have existing loans - based on the data gained
during this study’s research.
These benefits are integral to Ezay’s initial model,says KMS, “mom’n’pop shops are the backboneof their townships and we believe that bystrengthening it we can change the lives of people
in rural Myanmar”. And it is not just shopkeepers,
he says, but later the company intends to help
these shopkeepers offer e-commerce solutions
to their customers through digitising shops andconnecting them to wider consumer finance andurban supply chains.

Challenges and Support:

Acquiring an 8,000 strong network of rural shops is an ambitious task and one that requires investment

Ezay has projected that its seed funding willreach until the end of 2020 at which point it will
be seeking its next round of growth capital. KMS
reports that already some venture capital andimpact investors have shown interest. He hopes
to secure investment from supportive investors
who can bring strategic value in growing a national
network, e-commerce platform and logistics
business while at the same time recognising andunderstanding the challenges in Myanmar.

KMS notes that Myanmar’s tropical climate brings
its own challenges as rainy seasons affect access,but the company has modified motorcycles that
have, to-date, overcome any terrain.
As Ezay continues to scale and onboard moreenterprises - mostly women-led - onto its platform,
this also increases the number of women who will
have access to digital training from the company.

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The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

How She Did It
Female Talent Platform

How She Did It
How She Did It helps women - primarily mothers - upskill
and reskill so they can access flexible working while
coping with parenthood.
Stage: Early

Year
FoundedTotal Numberof Employees

112

How She Did It

2019

1

Percentage
Women

Leadership
Filled by Women

100%

100%

Business Model

Future Plans

Biggest Challenge

Development and provisionof paid-for training
courses for women

Pivot toward wider audience
than existing urban mothers

Team development

Gender Gap Recap

Recommendations from research carriedout in Myanmar regularly cite women’s unpaid timeburden as a barrier to their empowerment

In Myanmar
Of womensurveyed by IFC,
while

33%
36%
15%

of men consider that women should notundertake paid work.
started a business to allow for more
flexibility,of those we surveyed in the research listed
the same reason.

Founding:
How She Did It started out as a lifestyle
blog and popular demand led the pivot toonline training.
Nang Mon was living in the US shortly after having her first child. Having
always been a busy professional, Nang was eager to have a project.
She began a lifestyle blog which covered the challenges of motherhoodand particularly the transition from professional employment to being amother / carer. Notably, Nang wrote a lot about the challenge of keeping
a career while having a child, “for many women, their careers sufferwhen they have children” she said; she noted that women struggle tojuggle childcare and parenthood, employers are reluctant to hire newmothers in case they leave, and that culturally women are often madeto feel inadequate for working alongside being a mother. Before How
She Did It, Nang worked as a marketing training professional, researcher
and domestic violence counsellor in San Francisco, USA. Many of Nang’s
audience were from Myanmar and encouraged her to write the blogs
in Burmese as the topics would be popular among women still living
in Myanmar. When writing in Burmese (something she had to relearn)
Nang developed a loyal audience of around 10,000 active followers.
Encouraged by her followers, she returned to Myanmar and founded
How She Did It (HSDI) in 2018 to train other new mothers and help
them “upskill and re-skill” and pivot into jobs they could do alongsidemotherhood, such as social media management and copywriting.

Business Model:
How She Did It provides training to women(B2C) and helps companies recruit these
women (B2B)
Like many young enterprises, HSDI started from the personal experiencesof the founder and started modestly. Conscious that many Myanmar
women didn’t have skills to work remotely, Nang focussed the firstcourse on digital skills such as cloud storage and document collaboration
combined with content writing. These skills are targeted at helping
women become freelancers or work in areas such as social media
marketing, fitting for a country where Facebook is the main source of
information for the majority of people. By working with corporations,
HSDI is able to charge placement fees by filling the role of recruitment
agency. In doing so HSDI trains women (167 to-date) and helps them findemployment (59 to-date).

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Impact for Women and Girls:
Myanmar has famously experienced adigital leapfrogging and HSDI is intending
to build on this to help women enter theworkforce of the future
HSDI started by serving middle-income women in Yangon, with courses
costing each participant MMK 55,000 (USD 40). However, Nang wants to
expand these services to a wider audience and specialise in training whilemoving away from the recruitment side of the business, as doing so could
help more women in ‘greater need’ of support. Already,Nang has developed the course so that it’s
possible not just to learn from a smartphone,
but to work on mobile too; working from asmartphone may also be easier to work in
between household tasks.
Courses recommend and provide training on a range of apps suitable forsocial media marketing. Enabling learning across mobile devices widens
the potential market for HSDI, noting around 50% of women in Myanmar
own a smartphone. As well as taking a flexible platform approach, HSDI
also takes a flexible timing approach; courses are recorded and accessible
online but remote support sessions are all held around 9-10pm, “after
women have completed their household chores” says Nang. She believes
that these flexible approaches will be critical in ensuring that women are
included in Myanmar’s digital revolution and digital workforce.

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The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Future:HSDI is engaging in new partnerships to provide companies with social media marketing
management while furthering its training programmes to organisations
Recently, HSDI has begun offering new services
to businesses and NGOs. For one company,
HSDI is leveraging its trained network of young
mothers to provide social marketing support direct
to the client on a project basis. For NGOs, HSDI
has started offering bespoke training packages
which will upskill up to 50 staff at a time on digitalcommunication and productivity. Nang expressedthat these new channels were helping HSDI
work on larger projects and increase the pace oflearning in the organisation. With new lessons andfurther honed services, Nang hopes to be able topackage these existing projects into standardised
services that HSDI can begin to offer to wider
corporate clients.

Challenges and Support:

HSDI is building a remote team for its expansion plans, but still requires support in planningand execution

Nang Mon’s vision of a remote workforce doesn’t
begin with her customers, but with her team; as
HSDI begins to take on project work to expand
its products and customer base, Nang is planningto build a remote team. While she recognises
this may bring its own challenges, Nang believes
that to support and lead in developing a flexible
workforce of women, the team needs to be aflexible workforce of women itself. However, Nang
also mentioned that building a team is an area shewould welcome support.

Nang Mon took part in Founder Institute, aprogramme aimed at idea-stage entrepreneurs.
However while the programme helped her
think through some approaches, she still findsthat HSDI lacks capacity in long-term planning.
The company is planning to expand, but has nofinancial projections with which to inform businessstrategy and decision making. Nang has one
or two informal business mentors and flagged
mentorship as an area of particular interest. “While
we’re leading change, our model is adult learning
online. It would be great to have someone withsimilar experience to bounce ideas off and help
strategise with. Frameworks of what’s worked
would also help us organise and measure ourgrowth.” said Nang.

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The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Koe Koe Tech
Koe Koe Tech’s flagship smartphone app “Maymay”
provides prenatal and postnatal education to women in
Myanmar and helps them find nearby maternity care.
Stage: Grant-backed (Series A-B equivalent)

Year
FoundedTotal Numberof Employees

116

Koe Koe Tech

2013

117

Percentage
Women

Leadership
Filled by Women

56%

>50%

Business Model

Future Plans

Biggest Challenge

Free for users app, grant
funded (seeking sustainability)
digital tax collection withcommission fee to local
government

Scale products to sustainability,
launch hardware for electricity /water bill payment

Technical talent acquisition(software, hardware)

Gender Gap Recap

Myanmar’s maternal mortality rate is the highest in the region with
250 deaths / 100,000.

Only
Maternal mortality is

60%
3×
50%

of births have a skilled attendant present
more likely in rural areas of Myanmar
compared to urban areas.
of deaths involve women with only primarylevel education

Founding:
Koe Koe Tech was established to leveragetechnology to bring about positive healthimpacts in Myanmar; Maymay, theirflagship product, brings health information
to pregnant women
Koe Koe Tech Co-founder, Mike Lwin wasn’t meant to be in Myanmar
in 2009 but a delayed start at the law firm he was joining gave him theopportunity to take a research fellowship in the country. Lwin’s parents
emigrated to the US from Myanmar before he was born, where they areboth successful physicians. During Mike’s 2009 visit he met his cousin,
Yarzar Minn Htoo, now co-founder, a tech-savvy doctor. The two foundcommon ground in wanting to improve Myanmar with technology. In 2013
they formed Koe Koe Tech and began looking for a problem to solve.
Visiting hospitals and researching health indicators they soon found the
problem that would lead to their flagship product; Myanmar had, and still
has, very high rates of maternal morbidity1. Recalling this, Lwin noted that
this was something that information could solve and therefore technology
could support. Soon after, Koe Koe Tech launched Maymay, an app for
women to learn about family planning, pregnancy and childbirth andchildcare.

Business Model:
Maymay has around 120,000 daily active
users nationwide and more than 3.2M
reached via Facebook each month. To-date
Koe Koe Tech has leveraged grants anddevelopment project funding to reachthese women
While some rural information services, such as farming applications, may
be able to monetize from users through increasing their income, the same
is not currently true for Maymay. Maymay provides health information
to women. Therefore, Koe Koe Tech (KKT) has used government anddevelopment grants to make up this economic shortfall. It’s important to
Lwin that women do not have to pay for information that is keeping themsafe, or even alive. However, Lwin notes that in Myanmar around 90% of
health bills are paid by the individual and this could lead to a pathway oflong term sustainability for Maymay; Maymay could take a commission forsales channelled through the app. KKT is considering connecting users toother service providers, or enabling additional paid services on the app.
But, for now mobile money is still limited in Myanmar and while telecommunications companies will allow payment with phone credit, their feesare prohibitive at around 50%. KKT also plans to continue working with
NGOs as a service provider, noting the company’s core mission is to drive
positive social change in Myanmar.

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Impact for Women and Girls:
Maymay is used in every township in
Myanmar, in rural areas, IDP camps andhave been translated into nine ethnic
languages
Maymay has no doubt been a success in reaching far andwide across Myanmar.

Women report using the app to understandabout risk during pregnancy, to find local
clinics and for best-practices for looking after
their new-born child.
This is also helping Koe Koe Tech to map the needs of pregnant womenover the country and providing valuable data points about differences in
geographic locations. Koe Koe Tech also makes efforts to ensure that its
staff is representative of its users, with 95% Myanmar staff and a range
of Myanmar ethnicities as well as 50% of leadership positions being
held by women.

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The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Koe Koe Tech recently launched MyanKhon which is revolutionizing tax collection in Myanmar; thecompany aims to create a one-stop application for home services within the same app that lets
customers pay tax bills
Built in partnership with The Asia Foundation,
MyanKhon is a digital platform for collecting
property tax that leads to a 3× increase in property
tax collections and up to 10× for water payments.
Koe Koe Tech is planning to work with political
economists to support the government in theeffective use of increased tax receipts to better
serve households. While this product is not clearlytargeting women in the same way as Maymay, Koe
Koe Tech is employing a gender-sensitive approachand putting women at the center of their planning;by developing an understanding of the household,including the gender of the head of household,
MyanKhon will be able to offer products andservices to improve livelihoods. One hope is that
this can address the unpaid burden of women,
be it through outsourcing services or laying thefoundations for encouraging better community
services from the government. Lwin noted thatwomen are better customers for household
services too, as data suggests women will spend
more income on the family while men are more
likely to spend on themselves2. MyanKhon isaiming to reach 60 townships within 18-24 months,
starting in Yangon. Lwin confessed it was anambitious target, but one that they are taking steps
toward with more than 1M households registeredin their platform.

Koe Koe Tech has large and ambitious goals and the best support to help reach them comes from“open-minded experts with the ability to listen and the willingness to understand local context”
Maymay and MyanKhon are Koe Koe Tech’s
leading products, and the company continues toresearch both additional verticals inside theseproducts as well as new products. The challenges
faced by Koe Koe Tech revolve around continuous
research and development and the resources andexpertise this requires.
Koe Koe Tech has received volunteers from top
universities across the US and took part in SPRING
Accelerator Myanmar. Commenting on each ofthese, Lwin notes that the value in the support

comes from the individual’s mindset more thantheir expertise; those people who are able tounderstand and appreciate the Myanmar context
tend to provide more value than people making
recommendations based solely on past experiencefrom elsewhere. There is a risk, he notes, inbringing in top experts who are stuck in their own
way of thinking. Myanmar remains a unique andparticularly fragmented country and Lwin puts
stock in people who are able to accept that andchallenge their own assumptions.

References1

See section Maternal Health, above

2

Gender Equality and Women’s Rights in Myanmar - UNDP 2016

119

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Kyarlay
Kyarlay is a specialist baby products e-commerce company,
providing parents same or next day delivery, as well as an
online community where parents can learn about childcarefrom leading paediatricians.
Stage: Pre-Series A

YearFounded120

Kyarlay

2016

Total Numberof Employees

73

Percentage
Women

Leadership
Filled by Women

53%

>60%

Business Model

Future Plans

Biggest Challenge

Baby products e-commerce

Scale 4-hour delivery across
Yangon, launch private label tolower pricing for parents

Identifying strategic
growth capital

Gender Gap Recap

While exact data is scarce, research carried out by the ILO, ADB and IFC indicates the women in
Myanmar carry out a disproportionate amount of unpaid work.
ADB recommend investing in time-saving strategies for women would
help alleviate their unpaid work burden.
The gap in women and men’s labour participation rate increases most at the ages women havechildren, while women report seeking flexible work.

Founding:Husband and wife founders, Ko Soe Lin
Myat and Ma Nang Mo launched Kyarlay
in 2017 to help Myanmar parents accessquality baby products easily and atfair prices
Ko Soe Lin Myat was a senior developer for the technology giant Garenaand has a computer science MSc and computer engineering B.Eng fromSingapore1. Ma Nang Mo has ten years of experience in operations, also
holds a B.Eng in computer engineering and also worked for a Garena
company in Myanmar. Ko Soe Lin Myat previously founded an online
entertainment company, similar to the popular Buzzfeed site, but in
Burmese. However, when Facebook came to Myanmar, Lin Myat realised
he could not compete for users’ entertainment attention. Instead, heconsidered the profile of his user base, which was majority female andmid-late twenties and together with Nang Mo who had recently left
Garena, decided to launch Kyarlay. At that time, parents were limited tooffline shops and a completely analogue shopping experience as well as
limited products or ways of learning about quality products. Kyarlay isan e-commerce platform for baby products that brings the convenienceof e-commerce to parents alongside transparent product information.
Kyarlay also creates its own childcare content in partnership with leading
paediatricians. At the time of launching and even now, Kyarlay is the only
baby products e-tailer and the only baby products company offering same
day delivery.

Business Model:
Kyarlay sells offline and online andhas developed a digital communityof mostly young mothers around its
products and brandKyarlay sells to consumers at its two shops in Yangon and online, via
its mobile application. In Myanmar, digital solutions are powerful, but
consumers are still very much used to purchasing offline. Lin Myat believes
this omnichannel approach is essential to Kyarlay’s growth. Kyarlay uses
stores as fulfilment centres, making delivery more efficient; it provides
four-hour delivery in Yangon, which is unheard of among most companies.
Yangon, uniquely for SEA, doesn’t allow motorcycles which means delivery
tends to be a day or two after online orders are placed. Included in thecompany’s marketing efforts is a digital content channel which sharesinformation relating to pregnancy and childcare. Kyarlay sells a rangeof products, with the most popular being milk powder and diapers. The
company has also recently launched its own private brand products tobring middle-income consumers great value. Private brand products enable
Kyarlay to reduce the supply chain, passing on savings to their consumers.

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Impact for Women and Girls:

Kyarlay’s customers are mostly women and muchof its online education content targets women; acommercial enterprise, these are viewed as user
statistics rather than potential impact indicators
Kyarlay expected that their four-hour delivery would be favoured most by womenin Myanmar who invariably are in charge of childcare. Recent data for 2020 showsthat almost 90% of digital orders are placed by women. Online orders have also
increased significantly since the company was founded (both in absolute terms andas a share of total orders). The founders hypothesised that this is because womenalready have full days without having to go back to the shop for diapers or otherfast-selling items.

Nang Mo noted that if parents need diapers at short
notice, going to the shop and back can easily take1-2 hours due to traffic and product availability.
For the (free) online content, Kyarlay mostly targets pregnant women. Reliable
information about pregnancy is limited and Kyarlay sees this as an opportunity toshare valuable information, while providing value to those people who will likely
become customers at some point in the future. Content is purposefully targeted
toward women and Kyarlay’s data suggests that around 70% of their media
audience are women in their mid-late twenties. Kyarlay tracks detailed data on its
customers, it’s important to note that this data is collected primarily to improvethe company’s ability to serve women with value-adding products and services
over time. Content is kept light, such as recommending that mother and baby stayproperly hydrated, intentionally to limit any risks of misinterpretation.
Kyarlay also employs 53% women, who hold 7/8 of the management positions.
Kyarlay’s co-founders said this wasn’t necessarily by design, but that it is importantin any consumer business to understand the consumer and when the majority ofyour consumers are female it is logical to ensure that women have a voice inside theorganisation.

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The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Future:Kyarlay recently raised pre-series A capital and is scaling its approach across Yangon while aiming to
add more private brands to its product range
Kyarlay raised USD 750,000 at the start of2020 and is investing this money in building out
its omnichannel approach in order to provide
four-hour delivery across Yangon. As orders
increase, the company is also considering where it
can add most value to consumers through private
brand goods. Kyarlay hopes that through private
brand goods it will be able to partner with rural
distributors to bring goods that remain almost
exclusively the choice of middle-income urban
consumers to more rural customers.

Kyarlay shares an investor with Ezay and potential
collaboration across companies could help
modernise parenting in rural Myanmar throughmaking some products more affordable; diapers
and sanitary products are often made in the same
factories, Lin Myat mentioned, as another productKyarlay might be able to provide at low cost torural areas.

Challenges and Support:

Between a larger offline footprint and wider reaching online service, Kyarlay will need to manage
increased operations, logistics and marketing to scale
Lin Myat and Nang Mo have evidenced their ability
to build a fast-growing omnichannel business. As
the company grows, they see ahead continuing togrow their staff inside the business and securing
the right talent to support growth. Areas such as
digital marketing will become more importantas the brand grows and wants to move beyond
organic growth in their mobile application.
Similarly, as they manage multiple stores andwarehouses, execution of order fulfilment will
become a more significant part of the business.

In terms of the support required for entrepreneurs
in Myanmar, the couple cite that partnerships
between companies and other organisations
can help both parties to create additional value.
In addition, for companies like Kyarlay that are
beginning to expand a proven model, the founders
note that Southeast Asian expertise in similar
approaches can be helpful to identify potential
upcoming bottlenecks and prepare for them before
they arrive.

References
1

Garena is a Singaporean digital services company that engages in gaming,
eSports, e-commerce and digital finance, primarily focusing on Southeast Asia

123

124

Myanmar Women’s Self Defense Center

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Myanmar Women’s Self
Defense Center
MWSDC teaches women martial arts alongside training of theirrights within Myanmar law in an effort to empower women andincrease their confidence and in turn, their mobility.
Stage: Seed

Year
FoundedTotal Numberof Employees

2017

5

Percentage
Women

Leadership
Filled by Women

80%

100%

Business Model

Future Plans

Biggest Challenge

Development and provision oftraining to improve women's
confidence and agency

Franchise the existing model

Staff turnover and initial
growth economics

Gender Gap Recap
UNDP calls domestic violence against women in
Myanmar a silent public health emergency.
Data showsand
Women in Myanmar
media are

30%
33%
6×

of women experience intimate
partner violenceof women believe violence
toward them is justified
more likely to be portrayedas victims than men;

women are portrayed as victims of sexual violence
while men are portrayed as victims of war.

Founding:On returning to Myanmar, Evelyn Yu Yu
Swe noticed that her friends had restrictive
curfews as their parents feared for theirsafety after dark
Evelyn Yu Yu Swe undertook her bachelor’s degree in Political Scienceand Philosophy in the US before returning to Myanmar in late 2015. Since
then, Evelyn has accumulated several accolades including designing acurriculum for and teaching at Myanmar’s leading liberal arts college
and hosting the only English language radio station. But alongside theseroles, Evelyn has overseen a project she launched shortly after her return
to Myanmar; in February 2016 she co-founded Myanmar Women’s Self
Defense Center (MWSDC) in response to learning that many of her young
female friends were not allowed out of home in the evenings for theirparent’s fear of being abused. She also knew a lot of young women who
had experienced violence themselves. Partnering with her co-founder,a martial artist, MWSDC was founded to help women stay safe and givethem confidence while in public places.

Business Model:
MWSDC provides martial arts training
to individual women, as well as sexual
harassment, law and sexuality training
for individuals, corporates and NGOs
in Myanmar.
Co-founder Evelyn explained that, when starting out, MWSDC had to becareful when marketing itself as it was often interpreted as an exerciseclass. In actuality, the martial arts training is a vehicle through which
MWSDC engages women and helps build a community, while providingthem with knowledge on their rights, on sexuality and tolerance and on
the law in Myanmar related to sexual and other violence against women.
One area in which MWSDC invests time and money is training of trainers. In
addition to their regular training, they run a six-month training programme
for women who want to become trainers themselves. Evelyn explainsthese women tend to have visited the programme and want to be a part ofsharing it with more women. Women completing the course (around 40%)
become the next trainers at MWSDC or go on to run their own projects.
For corporates, NGOs and government organisations MWSDC teaches half
or full day training on sexual harassment in the workplace and rights ofwomen. Clients have included the British Embassy, Telenor and the British
School of Yangon, among others.

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Impact for Women and Girls:
A key outcome of four years of operation for MWSDC is its
more than 4,000 women who have participated in theirtraining, many of whom report feeling more confident on
public transport and in public spaces. Many parents, too,report feeling more confident in their daughter’s safety
outside of the home.
When MWSDC first started in a friend’s apartment, it was oversubscribed,
with 40 people trying to book just 15 places. Since then, it has remained a
popular but small operation with the class-size ranging from 20-50 for themartial arts course; corporate training tends to be around 50-100 people insize. But Evelyn is quick to note that the real impact is less from the physicalskills and more in the soft skills women learn, notably on sexuality, rights
and the law. For instance,in one corporation where MWSDC had
provided soft skills training and returned
months later to review changes, womenreported feeling more confident speaking up
when around their dominant male CEO.
Women who are trained to be trainers receive the deepest impact,
themselves going through a journey of becoming a martial arts coachand somewhat of a counsellor, “many of our participants have sufferedviolence; our trainers needs to be confident to teach martial arts and awareto spot when someone is uncomfortable with the conversation” reports
Evelyn. But it is parents who often keep women at home, and MWSDC
report that many parents feel more confident in their daughters’ ability tostay safe, having been through its training, which had led to later curfews
and more mobility for women.
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The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Future:MWSDC has struggled to grow beyond a small project. Training trainers takes time and trainer turnoveris high, but franchising might offer a path to scale.
MWSDC started with the intention to have cohorts
of women who would start as students, train
as trainers, and continue to grow in a cyclicalmanner. However, while students become paid
trainers, they often do not remain long enough to
support growth. Women becoming trainers often
leave to pursue further education, have children
or get married, reports Evelyn. To date this has
kept MWSDC small, employing just one full-timeand four part-time staff. However, more recently,
MWSDC has been investigating how it could use afranchise approach combined with adjusting thewomen they target to become trainers.

Currently, MWSDC teaches the full course ofmartial arts and soft skills to would-be trainers,
but Evelyn notes that there are already women in
Myanmar who have some martial arts knowledge.
By targeting these women and building their soft
skills, MWSDC may reach women who are lesslikely to leave after a year or so (also noting an
increase in the age-range of those being targeted).
Franchising would allow MWSDC to keep small,
intimate classes, while growing the brand andwider impact across and outside of Yangon.

Challenges & Support:

MWSDC requires hands-on support to attract grant funding to overcome short-term economic gaps intraining and build the foundations for franchising
Evelyn is quick to admit that her skillset is not
well-matched to grant-writing and courting
would-be donors. MWSDC has worked with NGOs
and government, but always as a service provider.
If the project is to formalise itself as a company
and grow into a franchise model, it will require
subsidies to overcome the economics of training
and talent retention. Evelyn is rightly concernedthat growth without a highly sensitive training
approach could cause harm, if trainers are not fully
equipped to work with victims of sexual abuse
many who likely have their own trauma.

She works with counsellors and doctors, but evensuitable trainers are hard to find in Myanmar. But,by centralising training and providing ongoingremote support to trainers and possibly buddying
them up with existing trainers, MWSDC sees apath to growth. To reach this path they will needtechnical support to help determine the franchising
approach and layer in systems to support remotemanagement; and financial support to cover costs
until the franchise begins to show traction.

127

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

ONOW Myanmar
ONOW provides women with training and finance so they
can start their own micro businesses and gain agency
associated with more income and financial independence.

128

ONOW Myanmar

Stage:Grant-based (Pre-Series A equivalent)

Year
Founded2016

Total Numberof Employees

38

Percentage
Women

65%

Leadership
Filled by Women>40%

Business Model

Future Plans

Biggest Challenge

Financial services educationand entrepreneurship training

Scale up work with commercial
and development partners toreach commercial sustainability

Talent acquisition and training

Gender Gap Recap
Girls are more than twice as likely to beoutside of education, employment or
training compared to boys

Just
Just
women are

65%
3%
40%

of women participate in key areas ofhousehold decision making.
of women in Myanmar made digital
payments compared to 4% of men andless likely to access an account via theirsmartphone than men

Founding:
When his friend’s sister had her passportconfiscated after migrating to Malaysia, Matt
Wallace began to seek ways to prevent other
women experiencing the same events
Before ONOW was even formally incorporated, Matt Wallace and co-founder Ryan,
were helping with basic entrepreneurial skills training for Myanmar young adults
wanting to set up micro enterprises. They saw increasing domestic economic
opportunities for people in Myanmar as a way to help avoid dangerous migration.
Johnny and Adam joined the team to combine experience in IT, development anddesign, and they started providing short entrepreneurial courses while consulting on
the side to generate their own income. As things grew, the training morphed fromyouth-focussed to women-focussed. Wallace describes the concentration on womenas both push and pull factors; on the one hand, more women were beginning tocome to the course, while on the other, the data showed women were behind men
in many areas of economic development. ONOW has since trained 750 women andprovided startup capital to 400, and now consists of a team of 35 Myanmars andthree Americans.

Business Model:
ONOW runs a rural training and incubation
programme, financial inclusion chatbot and acts
as a service provider for financial institutions anddevelopment agencies
ONOW’s incubation programme is targeted at women and based over three phases
including five weekend classes, three weeks individual coaching and ongoing
mentorship, often remotely, for twelve months. The programme costs 45,000 MMK
which covers its costs. This is an amount that Wallace says is affordable for theparticipants and ONOW only requires 50% up front. Often attendees are garment
workers looking to open up a small roadside shop and seeking the skills and small
startup capital to do so. ONOW provides both.
In addition to its incubation programme, ONOW develops financial inclusion chatbots
in order to educate women on basic financial products such as loans and deposits.
These are short-term initiatives that generate leads for financial institutions. ONOW
earns commission on those participants converting. Here again, ONOW targets womenin their advertising of each chatbot when it’s rolled out; the company ensures that any
one chatbot campaign includes 50% women. Chatbots allow basic interaction andtraining with around 60% of users engaging at least twice on a daily basis in the firstfew days of a campaign. These active users become leads for financial institutions tothen provide follow up information and market products.
Finally, ONOW will work for both financial institutions and development partners on
a project basis where the client has a specific scope of work to provide financial andentrepreneurship coaching. For instance, a financial institution may provide coachingon the importance of loan repayments before or after a chatbot campaign that aims
to generate sales leads. Development agencies have engaged with ONOW to provide
specific training to vulnerable populations.

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Impact for Women and Girls:

By increasing livelihood opportunities andincome among rural women, ONOW aims
to increase women’s agency
While ONOW’s work centres heavily around business skills and financial
inclusion, the company sees these as stepping stones toward increased
confidence and decision making for women.

By working with women who would
tend to earn an income of around
150,000 MMK (USD 100) ONOW cantypically increase incomes by 1.5–2×
The company’s theory of change assumes that by increasing women’s
incomes, they are able to be more financially independent and able tocontribute to household and other expenses in great amounts. In turn thisindependence or contribution increases confidence and thus, agency indecision making.

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The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Future:ONOW is in the process of planning its next strategic shift as a company, with assistance from The Miller
Center’s Accelerator Programme
ONOW is focussing on building out unit economics
that will enable it to scale and move away fromproject-based work. Largely, this will focus on thecommissions coming from the financial literacy
chatbots that will provide qualified leads tofinancial institutions. By accessing positive unit
economics, ONOW will be able to grow at a fasterpace and intends to use this momentum to reach
into new geographies. As they continue to identify
women via their financial literacy chatbots forfinancial and development institutions, they too
see an opportunity to increase the reach of theirentrepreneurship training to women. In 2020,
they launched a business coaching chatbot,
and combine it with phone-based coaching ofentrepreneurs across the country. These digitalplatforms provide a wealth of consumer data fromhard-to-reach regions of Myanmar, which is used to
improve program impacts.

Challenges & Support:

It takes around 6–12 months for ONOW to fully train junior hires, a potential barrier to growth
The key barrier to growth for ONOW is humanresources and capital to train staff. ONOW hires
junior staff and trains them over a year of on the
job training (training continues, but it takes around
6-12M before staff are at their most productive).
Hiring junior staff is cost effective, but training
for long periods is less so. Upfront capital to hireslightly more senior staff or to subsidise the costsof creating a suitable workforce would support
ONOW with potential upcoming HR challenges.
Being involved in The Miller Center acceleration
programme has been useful to hone andunderstand ONOW’s approach, Wallace reported1.
In terms of support on the ground in Myanmar,
having subject experts provide training or support

the development and testing of new strategies
are all of interest to ONOW. However, in orderto maximise the value of an expert volunteer,
Wallace indicated that a triage of the company
and its needs would help define the right person
or type of support for them. He said he wasvery open and grateful to those who could workthrough problems and challenges alongside the
ONOW team. Although, something that could be
extremely valuable is breaking down support
into two sections, the first being a detailed
needs assessment which would involve someone
spending time getting to know the company even
before beginning the second phase of working on
actual project tasks.

References
1

Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship is an accelerator for enterprises that
address the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
https://www.millersocent.org/about/

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The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Yangon Broom
Yangon Broom provides safe employment to low income
women from Yangon's economically deprived Hlaing
Thayar Industrial Zone.
Stage: Seed

Year
FoundedTotal Numberof Employees

132

Yangon Broom

2017

15

Percentage
Women

10%

Leadership
Filled by Women>40%

Business Model

Future Plans

Biggest Challenge

On demand home services
including cleaning

Scale up cleaning
business, add new andcomplementary services

Service staff recruitment
and training

Gender Gap Recap

47.5% compared to 77% of menof firms in Myanmar,
41% have female “top managers”

Women's Labour force
participation in Myanmar isof women employedoutside of agriculture,80%

are in informal employment(for unregistered / unincorporated enterprise)Founding:Founders Kayson and Vishnu combined
their recruitment and cleaning experienceto launch a cleaning enterprise to support
women in Myanmar
Kayson Yang was working in recruitment in Yangon when his friend
Vishnu returned from studies in Australia. Vishnu had been working fora professional cleaning company to support himself while abroad. The
two shared a desire to help people less advantaged than themselves in
Yangon and they soon realised that with recruitment and cleaning skills,
they were well-suited to launching a cleaning business. By doing so,
the pair knew they would be able to support low income women withgood, safe employment. Starting as an informal company in 2017, theyregistered the business in 2019 and have since grown to provide jobs forover 40 women from low income backgrounds.

Business Model:
Yangon Broom offers home cleaning on
demand and commercial cleaning on acontract basis across Yangon
Yangon Broom has two core revenue streams, the first is home cleaning
services and the second commercial cleaning, mostly for offices andschools. Home cleaning services are offered on demand or on subscription
and morning or afternoon slots are then matched to available cleaners.
While, commercial cleaning tends to be contracted over a longer periodof time. Both business sides have seen growth, especially this year andYangon Broom is continuously hiring more cleaning staff to meet theincreased demand for bookings.

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Impact for women and girls:

Yangon Broom provides jobs for womenfrom a densely populated andsocio-economically deprived industrial
area and provides them with a career andcorporate community
Hlaing Tharyar is Yangon’s largest and most densely populated township.
A large industrial zone, Hlaing Tharyar is known for its factories but also
for its crime, violence and gangs. This is the township from which Yangon
Broom recruits its cleaners. “We want to provide jobs for those in difficult
situations and our women are part of a large community, which helps us
recruit trusted cleaners through their network”, said Kayson.

Cleaners earn an average of 10,000
Kyat a day assuming they clean inboth morning and afternoon slots.
This is twice the minimum wage of
garment workers.
They receive training and a career path, with senior cleaners helping to
onboard new ones and being first to be trained on new skills, such as
deep cleaning and cooking which the company plans to launch in the
future. Yangon Broom also works hard to keep a sense of belonging in
the organisation - with regular outings and recognition of work well done.
Some of the women that work for the company have reported violence
at home and as such Yangon Broom has partnered with NGOs in Hlaing
Thayar to help direct women to services. The company also regularly
checks in with cleaners and encourages them to travel together on public
transport; safety in numbers.

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The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Future:Having received its first round of investment in mid-2019, Yangon Broom is seeking
investors to support their growth to the next stage
Broom received investment in July 2019 and sincethen increased its monthly bookings by four times.
To date the company is managing bookings manually,
but has designed a mobile application that they expect
will increase their efficiencies of bookings while also
helping learn more about their customers and provide
a more tailored service. The company intends tocontinue its cleaning services and to get the majorityof their customers using the mobile application.

Once efficiencies in operations are being realisedin their cleaning services, Kayson is eager to
add additional services, such as disinfecting
commercial areas. He notes that Yangon Broom
often receives enquiries for other services andthey’re studying which would be most suitable forthe company to move into.

Challenges and Support:

Yangon Broom has received support from its existing investors and hopes to findsimilar support from follow on investors
Yangon Broom’s existing investors have provided
marketing, operations and financial reporting
support to help the company grow in an organisedmanner. As the company adds technology, many
operational challenges will shift. For instance,
invoicing customers and paying cleaners throughthe app will reduce some operations, but many
companies in Myanmar with apps also have callcentres to help users use the apps. With thousandsof transactions each month, Broom is particularly
seeking support from investors who can provide
financial reporting expertise.

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The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

ZigWayZigWay helps women and households spread the cost ofbasic goods, creating financial savings of aroundtwo days' work each monthStage: Pre- Seed

Year
FoundedTotal Numberof Employees

2017

10

Percentage
Women

Leadership
Filled by Women

50%

>50%

Business Model

Future Plans

Biggest Challenge

Provision of basic goods
on subscription to pass onbulk-discountScale up existing model, workwith banks to help them lend to
low-income groups

Technical talent acquisition

136

ZigWayGender Gap Recap
Women take on a disproportionate amount of
unpaid work compared to men,
including family care, cooking and shopping.
Women are more likely to spend incomeon the household and family than men.
Among phone-owners, men and womenare as likely as one another to have a smartphone;but men are29%

more likely to own
a phone at all.

Founding:Miranda Phua and Laurent Savaëte combined
finance and technology experience to create
ZigWay, a fin-tech company aimed at lifting
people out of poverty
Miranda Phua met Laurent Savaëte while at an MIT entrepreneurship bootcamp.
She had previously held senior positions in banking and had spent four years
working in Microfinance in Cambodia. Laurent, a French engineer and “tech guru”
had been working in water and sanitation development in Papua New Guinea. The
two shared a desire to leverage private enterprise as a means to reduce poverty
by implementing a variant of the Graduation Approach, which aims to lift those in
extreme poverty out by providing them a range of basic services including helping
them to save money as a tool to build resilience. After launching a social enterprise,City Taps, in Niger, the pair were looking to establish a new venture, this time infintech. After reviewing a spreadsheet full of countries, they came to Myanmar
in 2016, due to its recent opening up, its smartphone adoption and the country’s
need for socially focussed enterprises to support livelihoods development. They
conducted in-country research and learnt that households, often women, were
often borrowing money informally at rates as high as 5% a day just to meet basic
needs. This would be the issue they would start to solve with ZigWay, a household
essentials subscription business.

Business Model:
ZigWay provides subscriptions to low income
households to allow them to pay in instalments
while benefiting from volume discounts; thecompany is also working with financial
institutions to help them provide nano loans
ZigWay’s smartphone app includes machine learning models to assess the creditworthiness of potential customers. Traditional factors, such as family size and household
finances are tracked, but so too are proxies such as personality factors and attitudes
towards saving. This approach helps ZigWay ensure subscribers continue to makepayments on time, helping them expand their services to more households. Currently,
ZigWay provides rice, cooking oil, soups, and education materials. Typically these
items would be bought in small volume, but by helping households buy from suppliersin larger quantities and pay over a monthly subscription, they can save households
around 20% on these items. ZigWay is able to pass on savings to their subscribers
while still making very reasonable margins.
Banks in Myanmar are unable to lend at the same unsecured rates as MFIs or
non-bank financial institutions (NBFIs) (14.5% vs 28%). As such, providing nano-loans(<$300) has typically been carried out by MFIs and NBFIs. However, ZigWay is now
engaging with a bank in Myanmar to help them de-risk loans by using ZigWay’s app
and the algorithms powering it. UNCDF is supporting this project and based on the
results, ZigWay hopes to be able to provide services to other banks for a commission
on transactions.

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Impact for Women and Girls:

Women in Myanmar tend to buy household
items and ZigWay engages women to
be Super-Users as part of their model,
providing them financial and digital
literacy training
Around 95% of ZigWay’s subscribers are women, though given the lowlevels of digital literacy amongst low income families in Myanmar, ZigWay
has built a network of Super-Users.

Super-Users help ZigWay to identify andregister new customers in ZigWay’s app,and also helps to minimise logistics efforts,
with Super-Users becoming drop-off points
for deliveries and regular users thencollecting them.
A Super-User is a woman who ZigWay will train on its products and service
and spend time ensuring that they are highly competent using ZigWay’s
mobile application. This way, ZigWay leverages pre-existing community
networks for marketing and customer support. The company began thispeer-to-peer expansion and service approach mid-2019 and has alreadyserved over 1,700 subscriptions, delivering rice for over 850,000 meals.
By saving consumers around 20% on their household essentials over amonth, ZigWay saves subscribers the equivalent of two days’ work. Given
that items are delivered nearby, they also save women time on shopping forthese items.

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The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Future:

ZigWay is planning to lift 20M people out of poverty by 2030 and that starts by expanding theirsubscription and nano-loans models
The Graduation Approach, upon which ZigWay’s
strategy is based, starts with consumption support,then helps people save and teaches them new
skills. ZigWay is doing each of these with their
existing Super-User model coupled with providing
finance to low income families. The company iscurrently working exclusively in Hlaing Thayar andShwepyithar, low income industrial zones of urban
Yangon. Now that it has tuned their algorithms
and seen early success in its subscription model,

the company is intending to expand this service
firstly throughout Yangon, and then to more
remote geographies. Nano-loans may help reachmore remote areas too, as growth will be driven
by partner banks. As the company grows in users,
so too it intends to grow in products (which also
links back to the Graduation Approach), including
training. By reducing the one-off cost of training,
ZigWay will be able to upskill low income people,
particularly women users of their services.

Challenges and Support:

Miranda Phua recognises the need to develop a strong Myanmar team in order to succeed in thismarket, but finding tech talent remains challenging
To-date, ZigWay has been grant-funded largely
with prize money, and also investment from a
fintech accelerator programme based in Australia,
Miranda’s home country. This has enabled
the company to build a strong Myanmar teamincluding a CFO with five years of experience inthe UK and a COO with 15 years of experience inrural microfinance in Myanmar. However, ZigWay
remains a technology-driven company and withLaurent stepping away from direct operations, thecompany has had to outsource some technicaldevelopment to India. Miranda is seeking a
Myanmar CTO but notes that the market for talentis small and this scarcity increases wages of skilled
developers. Currently Miranda is also beginningto build out the operations team, having hired

her COO last year. Both are hopeful to find strong
operational talent in the market. Microfinance has
become a more crowded field in Myanmar over the
past few years and, as such, there is a market ofpeople that would suit the expansion of a company
like ZigWay.
Miranda noted that, being included in a
Melbourne-based accelerator, was useful from ahigh-level perspective of having a process that
supported idea generation and testing. Pointing
toward international companies that had tried andfailed to enter the market, she highlighted that
Myanmar has its own idiosyncrasies that require
nuanced approaches; support from people outsideof the market risks being limited by a lack ofcontextual appreciation.

139

Survey: Women Business Owners
in Rural Myanmar

7

141

Survey: Women Business Owners in Rural Myanmar

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

142

Survey: WomenBusiness Owners in
Rural Myanmar
Survey Methodology

In collaboration with Ezay in Myanmar’s Bago region and Microfinance Delta in
Ayeyarwady region, 104 women business owners were identified for the survey
which was developed and carried out in-person by Ezay in Bago and Microfinance
Delta in Ayeyarwady.
Ezay provides delivery services for shopkeepers in remote areas whose businesses
are unregistered and underserved with even mobile money agents being located far
away from them. Microfinance Delta provides loans including group loans for women.
Therefore 100% of Microfinance Delta’s respondents had received capital. Therefore,
across these two samples there are comparable respondents, in comparable
geographies, one group who is the customer of an MFI and the other a customer ofa startup. As such, the combination of these samples represents both women at thebase of the pyramid and, crucially, women who have the means to be customers ofa service. The profiles below are based on the findings of 104 respondents; 44 from
Ezay / Bago and 60 from Microfinance Delta / Ayeyarwady.

Key Findings

Unregistered, women-owned and run businesses, mostly mom’n’pop shops, in rural
areas of Myanmar are the centre point of rural communities. According to interviews
carried out during this research there are around 2-3 mom’n’pop shops in any one
village. There are 79,838 villages in rural Myanmar, indicating anything between
140,000-240,000 mom’n’pop shops1. However, as a population, these shops, which
are almost entirely run by women, are rarely researched. Partly, this may be due tothem being unregistered or perhaps their remote nature. This research explores thispopulation for three key reasons:
Mom’n’pop shops are mostly led by women, developing an understanding of thisgroup is necessary for designing interventions to support them.
Women’s empowerment is linked to inclusive community development and mom’n’pop
shops are a central component of the community.
As evidenced by MIFIDA and Ezay, this population is able to economically afford
interventions / services aimed at empowering them and therefore warrant further
examination to determine other support they may desire that could be provided by
the private sector.

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Rural Women Entrepreneurs –Gap Assessment
Observations across groups

Only

99%

of women surveyed want to growtheir business99%

of women indicate their business iscashflow positive98%

of women only use a smartphone forcommunication

1 out of 104
30%

women indicated they sell online
indicated they take credit

27%

aren’t tracking their business finances; only
2% are tracking with their smartphone

92%

of women use business cash forhousehold expenses

64%

of women run the business themselves, while
68% make the large decisions (the remainder
being made by their husbands)

Observations of women with / without formal financing
1. Women who had received financing were the only group that
responded that growing their business would give them more
confidence
2. Women without finance reported that their husbands would make key
decisions 45% of the time and that they would make key decisions on
their own 30% of the time. On the other hand, women having received
finance reported making decisions 88% of the time and the husbands
making decisions just 12% of the time.
3. Similarly, women who had received finance were 3.5× more likely
to make decisions by themselves than women who had received noformal finance.

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The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Opportunities• All women surveyed were customers of a service; this is agroup with enough affordability to benefit from commercial
services that target improved business services.
• Despite Myanmar’s digital leapfrog, the women surveyed are
not using mobile phones beyond communication.
• Respondents indicated a desire for business services andfinancial training, as well as access to finance, all of which
digital solutions may be able to provide either alone or withina partnership.
• All but one woman surveyed indicated that they had ambitions
to grow their business, and the main motivator was to provide
for their family, indicating motivation and a reliable motive.

Considerations• Evidence of correlation exists between financial independence(receiving formal loans) and increased agency and potentiallyeven self-awareness (noting only women receiving financementioned “confidence” as a reason to grow the business).
• Men are taking an active role in the management and decision
making of women-led businesses (around 30% of the time). It’s
not clear what impact this has, if any. The survey was carriedout with women and therefore motivations for business growth(i.e. improve children’s education and health) are from awoman’s perspective and may (or may not) be shared by men.
• Business expenses are recorded 73% of the time and money
allocated for the business is separated from household money
69% of the time, but money allocated by the business is used
for household purchases 92% of the time. It would appear thatstronger support might be needed to keep business funds
supporting the business itself (or simply that income is too low
to support growth, even when planned or desired).

144

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Figure 46

Figure 47

Respondent Ages

Reasons For Growing the Business

Earn more money

60-70

6

50-60

19

40-50

42

Support mychildren’s healthand education

30-40

26

Feel more
confident

20-30

11

Have more skills

57

Support my family

48

31

17

4

Frequency of Response

Number of Respondents

Figure 48

Support Needed for Growth

Figure 49

Investment

Reasons For Starting the BusinessI wanted to increase
my potential to earna higher income

Business
Training
Financial Market
Training

I wanted to be myown boss / work
for myself

Links to othermarketA supportive
familyI needed flexibility toearn an income whilestill taking care of
my family andhousehold duties

Help with managing
the business
A supportive
peer group
Someone I cantalk to and get
advice from
Help with chores

It is a family businessthat I joined or
carried on from myparents/husband/otherfamily membersthat started it

Other

I saw a market opportunity
for a profitable business
0

50

100

150

200

250

300

Aggregate Score of Support Required (higher is better)

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Percentage of Respondents

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The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

146

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Rural Women Business Owner Profile

Than Than Aye

Betel Nut Seller - Ayeyarwady Region
Age: 43
Marital Status: Married
Dependants: 2
Education Attainment: Lower Secondary
Family dependent on income: Yes

Business Overview
Than Than Aye sells betel nuts outside the front of her house. She prefers to work
close to home where she feels safe and can care for her family. She started thebusiness out of necessity, to earn an income but also because it provides the flexibility
required to manage her family duties. Than Than Aye and her family depend on theincome of the shop to provide for their daily needs.

Business Management and Decision Making
Than Than Aye runs the business herself and takes charge of the large decisions.
She sells betel to customers from the local community, who pay in cash and she
tends to record sales on paper. Around a third of women like Than Aye Aye do notrecord expenses at all. Although she uses a mobile phone for communicating with hercustomers, she doesn’t use it for other purposes.
Household and business expenses come from Than Than Aye’s betel nut sales
revenues, although money is separated and allocated for each. Money left at the endof the month, after expenses, goes back to the business for new stock. She recently
took a loan from a microfinance institution in order to buy stock for the business. She
applied for the loan herself and is responsible for servicing it, which she can manage
through her sales.

Future Ambitions
Than Than Aye wants to grow her business, intending to begin selling juices alongsidebetel nuts and potentially also small popular grocery items. By growing her business,she can increase her income and better provide for her family, particularly her
children’s health and education. Increasing the size of her business will also increase
Than Aye Aye’s confidence. In order to grow the business, she is most interested
in getting access to finance, business training and help with business and financial
management.
References
1

Myanmar Information Management Unit MIMU (2015) Myanmar Administrative Structure147

Recommendations

8

Recommendations

This report concludes with recommendations for startups, for investors andfor other ecosystem actors interested in closing gender gaps in Myanmar.
These recommendations should not be regarded as prescribed solutions,but rather as guidance for taking a more considered approach with regard togender and entrepreneurship. As has been discussed in this study, entrepreneurship remains an interesting vehicle for pursuing greater gender equality
in Myanmar. By being aware of the opportunities that focussing on womenand girls has, and recognising existing gender biases, founders, investors
and other supporters can take meaningful steps toward creating a new andequitable Myanmar society for men and women, girls and boys.

Photo: MWSDC

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The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Recommendations for startups seeking
to close gender gaps with sustainablebusinesses
1.

Ensure women are at least equally represented in decision-making roles. Since
women and men experience the world differently, enterprises seeking to close
gender gaps should be able to understand the barriers, which includes working
with women in leadership roles.

2. Consider women as the customer or end user. Not all women and girl focusedservices require them to be the paying customer, but they will certainly be theend user or beneficiary. Therefore, innovative enterprises should take a humancentred design approach to understanding and exploring the effect their productor service has on the lives of women as users. Not only will this help identify
the impact of the business, but it may unlock additional insights from which thebusiness model can be adjusted.
3. Have a business plan and have financial and social projections to explain andunderstand how the business intends to grow and become profitable. Financial
projections need not be complicated, but should show the interaction between
costs to grow the business (staff, marketing, operations) and the revenues
from gaining more customers1. “Social projections” should relate to the impact
identified in (2) and should be measurable (see 4).

Recommendations

4. Measure commercial performance and social impact from the very start of thebusiness’ operations. Measuring a few indicators consistently over time is likely
to provide more valuable information to donors and investors than measuring
several indicators sporadically or infrequently. While measuring results may
require additional reporting and impede on founder time, it is essential for any
growing business to evidence traction, particularly if the business is aimed ataddressing a specific gender gap.

150

5. Be mindful of how grants are leveraged in the business. Grants may help
businesses test their model or refine it to a point where the business can becommercially sustainable. However, grants may also remove some need forbusinesses ensuring that they become commercially sustainable. Founders
should be aware of this trade-off and consider the role of grants within theirbusiness model. Grant reliance should decrease over time if the startup or
business is seeking to evidence commercial viability.
6. Develop relationships with investors as soon as possible but with a clear ideaof upcoming funding needs. Myanmar is a small market with a number of active
investors, including those at seed stage. Some seed-stage investors in Myanmar,
unlike other markets, respond positively to unsolicited enquiries. Women face
additional challenges to fundraising in a patriarchal society and should consider
requesting that investors communicate a gender component within their strategy.
7.

Purposefully seek several mentors to support the enterprise. Mentors can bevaluable resources for making introductions, offering advice and potentiallyproviding early investment. Finding mentors should be treated in a similarmanner to finding investors: the founder should map their own needs and thoseof the business, then map potential mentors and go about making or seeking
introductions to them.

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Recommendations for investors interested in promoting gender equality
1.

Recognise that both male and female investors are inherently biased toward
investing in men, seemingly even in the case for businesses focused on women;
consider what actions may alleviate investor gender biases, such as ensuring
gender diversity amongst investment decision makers. SPF and the AustralianGovernment Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), Frontier Incubators
initiative, has developed a Gender Lens Incubation and Acceleration (GLIA)
Toolkit for helping organisations conduct a “gender audit” on their practices2.

2. Consider the gender gaps explored in this paper with a view to identifyingcommercial / social opportunities that may come from closing them. Womenare an under-served consumer class generally and show indication of increased
consumer loyalty and appreciation when services are tailored for them. This
report highlights that there is a breadth of companies, more and less socially
focused, building their strategy on putting women at the centre of their businessmodel and achieving growth from doing so.
3. Acknowledge that, at least among the types of businesses surveyed in thisresearch, startups in Myanmar are seeking mentorship, support with humanresources and general business support as well as capital. Providing capital
without providing support may therefore require helping startups identify otheroperational and technical help. Investors may consider working closely with otherecosystem actors such as accelerators that match their investment priorities andphilosophy.
4. Consider the strategic position of under-served women-run businesses in rural
areas. Such businesses are often at the centre of their community and can be
optimised as network nodes for reaching wider rural populations.
5. Work closely with HR, recruitment and training agencies to help alleviate andattend to gaps in talent acquisition. Human resources was a key pain point forcompanies surveyed by this research and as companies grow they are likely toface ever-increasing challenges in securing skilled staff at affordable prices.
Investors would do well to consider how they support companies to grow theirtalent pool and find innovative ways of upskilling and retaining staff alreadywithin portfolio companies.

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The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

Recommendations for other ecosystem
actors seeking to promote businesses
that attend to gender gaps in Myanmar
1.

Establish a long-term support vehicle prioritising women’s inclusion in leadership,cohort diversity and business model focus. Accelerators, for instance, provide
capital, mentorship and training to startups to help propel their businesses.
Startups in this research indicated needing this type of holistic support, with apreference to longer-term programs. Such an approach should focus on providing
structured methodologies to mitigate bias during enterprise evaluation, forexample during pitch days, and concentrate on helping entrepreneurs unlock
value within their business models.

2. Establish a professional mentor network. Mentors can fulfil many of theimmediate needs that businesses in this research expressed, such as advice
and market connections. However, startups indicated that they struggled tofind mentors themselves. A professional mentor network should include a local
partner in Myanmar who could help companies explore their pain points andmatch mentors, thus avoiding gender bias among mentors selecting companies.
This local partner should then support the startups to integrate advice provided
by mentors, adding value to the mentorship relationship.
3. Undertake and conduct public research prioritising the need of investors andstartups seeking the latest information. For example, this research has identified
that rural women shopkeepers in Myanmar are an under-served market withwillingness to pay for services and a desire for services such as business training.
Similar research could unlock new insights for startups and investors to focus on.
In Myanmar, public data still remains limited and therefore contributing researchshould be valuable. While development actors frequently publish economic
and social research, they do not appear to be targeting small and innovative
businesses in Myanmar. Presenting data, making data publicly available andcommunicating its availability to startups should all be prioritised for encouraging
innovation toward new areas and gender gaps.
4. Prioritise discourse between female-led companies and equity investors. This
research indicates that men are more likely to achieve equity funding than
women, which matches other research on the subject. Ecosystem actors can
support change in this area by nurturing discourse between women founders
and investors. However, discourse alone may not be enough to cause change
and therefore ecosystem actors should also consider providing training on gender-inclusive investing to investors.
5. Research and review existing toolkits aimed at supporting startups purposefully
approaching social causes, particularly gender, and ensure that there areclear tools available for founders. Oftentimes such toolkits may focus heavily
on including social elements but, in Myanmar this may deter from growth as
founders have indicated they still need business support. Therefore, startups
need guidance that helps them combine growth tracking with social indicator
tracking at a level which they can feasibly cope with from an early stage. It may
be that elements of different toolkits or curricula need to be combined to best
suit the Myanmar market. Translating such resources into Burmese or other
Myanmar languages would also help widen the net of founders and encourage
further diversity among startups. Since around a third of companies did not havefinancial projections, any toolkit should include clear information around creating
projections and linking to several spreadsheet templates with clear instruction
would likely help startups engage with basic business planning.

References152

1

EME has written further about financial modelling and has produced a free template for startups which can befound at https://www.eme.asia/insights/category/guides

2

SPF and DFAT Frontier Incubators Gender Lens Incubation and Acceleration Toolkit, available at https://
toolkits.scalingfrontierinnovation.org/

Photo: Ulf Svane

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Appendix i

Advanced recommendations forestablishing a long-term support
vehicle focusing on women’s inclusion
both in cohort diversity and businessmodel focus
Developing an accelerator program for
Myanmar startups
Startups move at a fast pace. Whereas it might take a large corporation years topivot into a new direction, startups pivot constantly. This continuous iteration is whatenables startups to find new solutions to existing problems; startups fail over andover until they succeed, or give up. Accelerators tend to interpret this speed as being
well-served by short-term programs ending in a “demo day”, where startups pitch
to investors. Startup accelerators have grown in popularity since Y Combinator (YC)
began in 2005 in Silicon Valley. One development practitioner claimed in 2019 thatof 554 global accelerators, almost half were headquartered in emerging markets1.
Broadly, these programs provide capital to founders and support to cohorts of small
founding teams over a period of months and culminate in a “demo day” where thefounders pitch to investors. The logic is that if a startup cannot work out a solution
in the given timeframe and thereby secure investors, then it probably is not goingto succeed. This short-term binary approach might be effective in economies with
developed angel networks and high liquidity, but Myanmar has neither. In the absenceof angel networks and liquidity, development partners often subsidise accelerators tobolster startups and close the gap between them and available investors.
Funding, mentorship and technical support were all priorities of the startups thatwere interviewed and / or surveyed in this research. As such, there seems to be agood case for an accelerator program in Myanmar, specifically one which targets
businesses addressing gender gaps.

Appendix i

The following recommendations are aimed at identifying how such a program
could differentiate itself from other accelerator models in Myanmar or elsewhere
and contribute in effective ways to supporting startups such as those discussed inthis research.

154

Change the focus from fundraising toneeds-based
A study carried out by multiple development partners across 2,000 ventures and 42
accelerator programs found that accelerators are “most helpful when they provide
the right help to the right people”2. Specifically, the same study said, this means
moving away from a sole focus on funding as the goal. Accelerators that treat raising
equity (or debt) as the key measure of success risk ignoring the individual needs ofthe companies they are attempting to support; ignoring individual needs makes it
impossible to provide the right support. A World Bank report investigating genderand accelerators outside of Myanmar also found that, when it came to raising equity
finance, accelerators did nothing to reduce the bias toward men receiving funding. If
the end goal is raising equity, accelerators may be unknowingly exacerbating genderfinancing gaps.
Instead, accelerators need to work closer with founders to discover their true needs
and employ flexible programs that address those needs. In Silicon Valley, YC is ableto select from hundreds of applications specific startups that best suit its program. In
Myanmar with a smaller pool of startups, the program should suit multiple types ofapplicants. For instance, this study shows that human resources is a key challenge
for founders, while others require general execution support around core business
functions. A program which prioritised the needs of startups should allow for
addressing the most pressing challenges, which may require the breaking down of acohort into smaller groups. Starting all companies at the same start point and moving
toward a fixed ”demo day” is likely to benefit a handful of the cohort only. Thosestartups not benefitting from this approach face an early and artificial failure of not
being selected for investment when what they needed was something else entirely.
This risks dampening entrepreneur spirit, particularly among women who are lesslikely to receive equity funding.
A more needs-based approach could be to design a highly modular program and match
modules to needs, for instance, packaging sales and marketing into one module andfinancial reporting into another. Rather than these modules being consecutive andcompulsory, they can be plugged-and-played; accelerator staff should identify theneeds of the startup and ensure that modules are matched to them. The accelerator
would do well to facilitate dialogue with investors during the development of thesemodules, ensuring at each point that what the accelerator is teaching is likely to match
what investors are seeking (i.e. growth in paying customers, repeat customers).
The modules may and should include research components, which should beconsidered for packaged grants. If a startup wishes to develop a mobile application
for a purpose, then first it should ensure there is a need and the app provides asolution. Or if a company lacks good financing practice, training and a subscription
for bookkeeping software might help them ensure transparency when they come tomeet investors. Such examples show that rather than focusing on pitching the startup,
focus on supporting its areas of need could improve its ability to raise capital.

Engage with the right donors for theright approach
To move beyond startup financing from investors as the goal, an accelerator
needs willing supporters. Donors are right to be careful of distorting markets withaccelerators that provide grants. The study above suggests that grants do not instil
the same accountability as equity and therefore risk, making startups ill-suited forthe investors they are being prepared for. However, the authors acknowledge that
INGOs run accelerators because they are often not commercially sustainable. Thereis a confounding logic in employing a private sector mechanism (equity) in a vehicle
where commercial viability is unexpected. It is imaginable that accountability comesless from the type of finance and more from the holistic approach of the accelerator.
Accelerators that work closely with investors and nurture relationships with startups
and investors even before ”demo day” should be able to ensure accountability
alongside grants, particularly if grants are matched to needs, kept small, and closely
monitored.
Another reason for grants over equity from the accelerator is that equity requires acompany valuation3. If an accelerator provides USD 20,000 for 10% then the company
is valued at USD 200,000. However, if the company is pre-revenue or low-revenue by
the end of the program, it may well be difficult for them to justify a valuation higher
than the one set in the accelerator. Startups may then have arbitrary price tags whichmake them too risky for investors. There is also a false sense of success in investors
investing in companies coming out of accelerators that donors should recognise: theaccelerator only receives capital back from that company if it is able to sell its stake(or earns dividends). In Myanmar this is likely to be many years into the future, often
outside the timeframe of donor programs. It is crucial that artificial success metrics
do not overshadow or distract from actual success, which may be measured by any
number of other metrics ideally focused around growth in revenues and customers.
Similarly, charging fees to startups that receive investment after participating in a
program might put off some investors; early-stage investors want to see their funds
supporting growth in the startup.
Providing grants has additional benefits, too. As indicated above, startups will havedifferent needs including funding needs. If the startup requires USD 5,000 and
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The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

receives USD 15,000, then perhaps they will not be as cost sensitive as if they hadreceived USD 5,000. Making multiple small grants is not only more flexible legallythan equity, but it may help install better financial governance if grants are awarded
based on well-costed plans. In this sense, funding is seen as “funding second” rather
than “funding first”: rather than giving a startup a set amount of capital and theirspending it as they see, funding should be matched to specific needs. One participantof SPRING accelerator indicated that SPRING would even use grants to fund research,with funding going to the startup’s needs, rather than the startup.

Replace pitch days with continuous engagement
Pitch sessions are more likely to favour men as in any patriarchal society, where
men hold most roles that would see them speaking in public to a room full ofbusinesspeople. For many women who may have been raised with low self-confidence or lacking belief in their right or ability to work, making public and intimidating
pitch events particularly inappropriate. As such, pitch days could well serve womenand low-middle income founders poorly.
Instead of hosting pitch days, accelerators should build better connections withinvestors. Rather than simply seeking to understand what private investors arelooking for, accelerators can also share insights with investors. As those who are at
the earliest stage in the market, their insights ought to be valuable and meaningful
to investors. Through these close relationships, meaningful introductions could bemade to startups within the accelerator program. If investors have feedback for thestartups, the accelerator may be able to use that within its program to support thestartup. Creating a stronger dialogue may also be done digitally by listing details ofstartups on a website and posting regular updates.

Enable longer term programs
Cycling through cohorts quickly may be an approach which dries up after a short timeand may not suit all startups. Instead, committing over the longer term to startups
could yield better results. One such approach could be combining a longer-term
program with tiered grant amounts within the accelerator. Rather than all the moneyat the start, smaller amounts which increase over time based on hitting key milestones
could extend the support to startups without increasing the sum total of grants tothem. Naturally, extended support may carry additional costs, but it seems feasiblethat awarding smaller grant amounts over time may create efficiencies which allow
for longer term startup support from key accelerator staff. In fact, awarding numerous
smaller grants means that early startup failures cost less.

Over-represent women in accelerator
management and among cohorts
According to this study, women are more likely than men in Myanmar to start andunderstand businesses focused on women. Any accelerator aiming to close gender
gaps should aim to attract as many women as possible, while still acknowledging thatdiversity is key to success and men also found businesses that close gender gaps.
This same logic needs to be applied to the management of the accelerator: if the roleof the accelerator is supporting women-focused startups, then women need to be
in decision-making positions. Finally, engaging with women as mentors should be apriority for the same reasons.
Having female-only cohorts should also be a consideration if accelerators are facing
difficulty in recruiting entrepreneurs. The representation of women in marketing ofbusiness support programs, and the application of a gender lens to program delivery,
can encourage more women to participate in accelerators and benefit from training
and mentorship. This includes taking into consideration the dimensions discussed
in this report, such as women’s lack of time (meaning that accelerators need to be
tailored to address women’s availability and existing resources).
Finding leading mentors was a reported strong point of SPRING Accelerator.
Interview respondents in this study said that SPRING had a wide enough network to
tap into incredible mentors across the globe. A similar approach is likely required,especially when noting a preference for women mentors; Myanmar is still a relatively
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The Role of Entrepreneurship in Closing Gender Gaps in Myanmar

small market and there will be limitations to local talent. However, respondents also
noted that international mentors risked missing the Myanmar context. Therefore, theaccelerator should take an active role in mentor management, working alongside
the startups and mentors to ensure best results. Myanmar citizen mentors should
also be prioritised for many reasons including local networks, language and a deep
understanding of the Myanmar context.

Integrate social impact measurement in
performance metrics
As indicated in this research, even socially focused startups struggle to measureor understand impact. This may be due to a lack of understanding surrounding
impact measurement or limited sophistication within the companies; around a thirdof the startups surveyed also lacked financial projections. Therefore, social impact
measurement should be seen as complementary or even the same as performancemeasurement. Startups within impact measurement may still raise equity, but startups
without commercial performance measurement will struggle. Therefore, at the outset
all reporting needs to be as lean as possible.
The best way for accelerators to ensure that impact is measured is to fold impact
measurement into the metrics that companies track. These metrics should be kept
as few as possible, noting that startup founders fill many roles and any additional
reporting is likely to be burdensome. Startups grow quickly, or have the potential
to, and as they grow so too should systems and procedures. Therefore, impact
measurement should be treated in a similar vein: at the early-stages startups should
track the minimum viable indicators to evidence and ensure growth in the right
direction, potentially adding further indicators or research means as the company
grows. Scaling impact measurement alongside company growth is likely to help thecompany access larger capital investment which may have more requirements thanearly stage investment (often due to the limited partners of social impact investors
having environmental social governance requirements).

References1

Haynie, R (2019) The case for INGO run accelerators

2

Roberts, P (2017) Accelerating Startups in Emerging Markets

3

Other accelerators have used SAFE notes, a type of convertible bond. While SAFE notes were created tobe easy to interpret, they are still much more complex than the idea of equity, which simply sets a pricefor a single transaction at any given time. For early stage startups especially, SAFE notes may be hard tounderstand. See https://www.ycombinator.com/documents/ for more.

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Appendix ii

Advanced recommendations
for creating a formal network of
paid mentors
Creating an accelerator is a large task and one that may take some time. In the interim
mentors may offer the fastest solution to providing expertise to women-focusedstartups. However, perhaps due to the pace of startup or perhaps due to theirlimited sophistication compared to larger corporations, finding suitable mentors may
be challenging. During case study interviews, some founders indicated that evenexperienced business professionals / volunteers working with their companies forextended periods could take weeks to understand the position of the company and its
needs in context. Mentors tend to be experienced business professionals with limited
time, but with wide networks and rich experience. As such, they are most efficiently
used to solve big problems or make introductions, both of which require startups to
first understand their needs.

1. Find a Local Partner to help startups understand their needs
This research suggests that startups value local expertise and that people in
Myanmar more easily understand the challenges of doing business in-country.
However, some technical mentors may be in other countries and even thosein Myanmar may still have limited time. As such, identifying a local partner in
Myanmar (LPM) who can do the initial assessment of startups might offer a more
efficient solution to creating a mentor network. The LPM would triage startups,
select mentors within the network and introduce them to particular problems
that startups were facing. They could then support the startups to integrate their
mentor’s advice into their business, all the more so if the LPM has specific staff
who can be allocated to a small number of companies.

Appendix ii

To properly assess the startup may take a matter of weeks, during which timethe ideal case may be for LPM staff to be integrated into the startup. Foundersinterviewed suggested that the best way to understand their startups was tospend time in and around their day-to-day operations so that the abstract becomesthe actual. If the LPM can spend this time and then spend time communicatingwith mentors, they can increase the potential for the mentors to understand theissues within the startup; by working with the mentors to implement change, theLPM can also ensure that expertise is met with contextual understanding.

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2. Pay mentors for their time
Since Myanmar’s angel investing networks are still emerging, mentors can be
expected to require some form of incentive for their time. The simplest incentive
would be payment in exchange for services. By developing a scale of payable
fees to mentors, the mentor network could leverage different levels of expertiseas required. For example, a mentor with limited experience may be able to help
a company with creating a financial model and would therefore be paid a lower
rate than a mentor making introductions to investors.
The other benefit to paying mentors is that it should remove some bias thatmentors may have to support one company over another. Companies at an
earlier stage may require more support but may be less interesting to seasoned
professionals; this study finds that early stage companies are the most likely
to require execution support. Men tend to raise more equity investment than
women and even if mentors are not investing money, they are investing time. To
avoid the potential for a mentorship gender gap, where mentors favour male-led
companies, mentors should be paid for their services.

3. Provide both Mentors and Mentees with training and support
Mentors may require their own support to ensure they are providing high-quality
and appropriate mentorship to the entrepreneurs they are matched with.
This may include an understanding of local context and culture, or providing
guidelines or training on basic coaching skills. Mentees should also understandthe expectations of accessing a mentor’s guidance and their time; mentees
may need to receive some training in what it means to make the most out ofa mentoring relationship, and how to build a long-lasting relationship that
continues to benefit them and their business.

4. Use the mentor network to build a foundation for an
accelerator
If created as outlined above, a managed mentor network would go some way todeveloping a component of acceleration. Accelerators should use their networks
to access technical and business professionals and to make introductions toinvestors. If Myanmar were to have a fully established mentor network alreadyexisting in place, and a local partner generating data on the network, this could
provide an entry for an accelerator. Therefore, any mentor network should be
developed with the end in mind and should keep good data on its activities andlessons that could later be used to support the formation of an accelerator, or
indeed another vehicle aiming to support businesses that close gender gaps.

159