Title: My Summer Internship: The Trip of my Life – Next Stop Maputo

The small and medium enterprise (SME) sector plays a crucial role in Mozambique’s development and has been identified in numerous recent reports as a major instrument for economic growth, job creation, and poverty alleviation. The current economic state in Mozambique implies significant challenges and opportunities for small entrepreneurs in general and even more so for female entrepreneurs. Due to gender-based barriers, women generally lack the necessary resources for starting and developing their own businesses, and therefore remain the underdog in the country’s economic landscape.

In this context, TechnoServe, a nonprofit aimed at promoting business opportunity, has partnered with ExxonMobil through the Women Business Connect project to reach, train, and mentor Mozambican businesswomen in financial literacy and business skills. By joining this program, I have been blessed with the opportunity to meet amazing Mozambican women who are overcoming enormous challenges to own their place in the progress of their country’s economy. Allow me now to introduce to you one of these gamechangers.

“Being a successful female-entrepreneur in Mozambique requires discipline, determination, passion, and, most of all, preparation. Being a woman shouldn’t be a barrier to success in the business arena. The real impediment is the lack of education, discipline, and the savviness it takes to make the right decision and turn great ideas into real business models.”

These are the words of Abneusa Manuel, a 23-year-old entrepreneur who is about to open her second fast food restaurant this October in Maputo, Mozambique. Aby, as her friends call her, opened her first restaurant in April with the plan to make her business grow into a restaurant chain that provides a good experience for fast food lovers and creates job opportunities for young and talented Mozambicans.

Aby recalls how, during her years pursuing a Bachelor’s in Computer Science, there were only 7 women in a program of 35 students. She posits that this imbalance existed because many in her native Maputo believe that certain degrees, like computer science, are more suitable for men, while women are expected to study other careers perceived as caregivers’ areas, such as nursing, law, and teaching.

Given her experience, Aby believes the problem of gender inequality in universities, which further impacts the business environment, originates in the family. Families have different expectations for boys and girls, even before they are born. They dream of their son becoming a doctor, an engineer, or a pilot, while, their daughters are lucky if they attend university and instead are trained to become good housewives. It is in their formative years that boys are prepared for excellence and independence—and girls for dependency.

Breaking the mold, Aby’s family encouraged her to study Computer Science and expected nothing but excellence from her in return. Her family’s support influenced her choice of major and has impelled her success as a business woman today. “I learned about determination and discipline in my house: my father taught me that successful status is achieved with hard work,” she says. “I studied well as a student and I continue to learn every day about being a businessperson by surrounding myself with a great network of business people who, like me, search for innovative solutions to the problems of many.”

To the question of how women can succeed as business owners in Mozambique, Aby says her society must bring up independent women who are ready to compete with men as equals. The day parents begin to teach their children by showing them that their sex is no limit to what they can become in life, stronger women will emerge from schools and universities and lead as managers, entrepreneurs, and politicians.

This young entrepreneur, who dreams to one day become a business coach and promoter, hates to be pigeonholed as a businesswoman; she rather strives to be compared with successful business owners irrespective of sex. She reflects, “I am where I am not because I am a woman but because I have the skills and the drive it takes to succeed.” She believes that her sex was not the reason for her success, nor should it be the roadblock stopping her from achieving her goals. This it is not to ignore the fact that currently there are more than one million women entrepreneurs in Mozambique unable to realize their full economic potential but to emphasize the importance of social and policy reform to support women in pursuing a diversity of careers.

Until this year, Aby’s work experience had focused on social activism: serving as the Gender and Human Rights officer in the Mozambican Youth Parliament and as the president of MOZDEVZ, a local software developers community aimed at training young Mozambicans to develop innovative solutions to poverty using technology. With such a background and a computer science degree, managing her own fast food restaurant chain may not seem like an obvious choice. Yet for Aby, this business is a preliminary practice step while she continues mastering her business skills, raises capital, and creates a strong network of important stakeholders within the business ecosystem in Maputo. Her longer-term plan is to launch a Business Models Lab Center to train, mentor, provide resources, and funnel opportunities to young entrepreneurs.

Aby believes a business incubator like the one she is planning to start is necessary to promote entrepreneurship in Mozambique. Although she doesn’t disagree with those who believe an increased access to capital is fundamental in Mozambique, she thinks increasing access to capital alone will lead to more market failures. Rather, she asserts the government and policy-makers’ primary focus should be on improving access to quality education and quality training on how to use money and how to invest properly in the Mozambican ecosystem. With more business labs like hers, local women and young people could be trained to think strategically as business people and learn about how to invest and succeed with the resources they have locally.

“Educate, mentor and then after provide the capital, and great ideas will become great solutions to poverty,” says Aby.