firstly women s entrepreneurship represents untapped potential for psd while womenowned mses have been found to be less profitable than mses owned by men alturki and braswell gtz ifc b ifc llavarasan and levy ilo b this genderbased difference seems to disappear for larger ventures in fact some evidence suggests that among mediumsized and large enterprises those owned by women are equally or more productive than those owned by men gtz this makes it important to identify and address possible barriers constraining the growth and upgrading of womenowned mses secondly a number of key barriers to growth are specific or particularly constraining to women entrepreneurs