Women are at the heart of South Africa’s early childhood development (ECD) sector. They make up the vast majority of the workforce, run ECD programmes and businesses, lead organisations, conduct research and develop solutions to the challenges facing young children and their caregivers.
But there is another part of this story worth exploring. What happens when more women move beyond participating in the ECD ecosystem to developing solutions within it?
There is growing evidence of women’s entrepreneurial ambition in South Africa. There are also barriers that can make it harder for promising ideas to move from early-stage activity to established businesses or enterprises.
For ECD, this presents an opportunity to ensure that we are not overlooking the ideas, experience and entrepreneurial potential of women.
Women Driving Change in ECD
The scale of women’s contribution to ECD is substantial. The 2021 ECD Census found that women made up 91% of the ECD workforce. That means women account for the vast majority of the approximately 198 000 people working across more than 42 000 early learning programmes, reaching over 1.6 million children.
Women are doing much more than caring for and educating children. They are running businesses and organisations, designing and delivering programmes, conducting research, developing solutions, leading initiatives and responding to the challenges facing children and their caregivers. Some are building enterprises around the needs they see, while others are shaping policy, generating knowledge or developing new approaches to ECD.
This entrepreneurial activity sits within a wider picture of women’s entrepreneurship in South Africa.
According to research released by Mastercard in 2025, 57% of South African women identify as entrepreneurs, while 71% are interested in starting their own businesses. Many women are also using side hustles as a pathway towards full-time business ownership.
The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) offers a more nuanced picture. In 2023, 9.7% of South African women were engaged in early-stage entrepreneurial activity, compared with 12.7% of men. The gap widens when we look at established businesses, with 4.1% of women identified as established business owners compared with 7.9% of men.
The picture is therefore not one of women lacking entrepreneurial ambition. There is interest and activity, but fewer women are making the journey from early-stage entrepreneurship to established enterprises or businesses.
For ECD, that raises an important question about what might be possible if more women with ideas for addressing challenges in their communities had the opportunity to develop those ideas further.
The Gap Between Potential and Progress
Turning an idea into a viable solution requires the opportunity to test it, learn from what works and what doesn’t, refine it and, eventually, reach the people who could benefit from it.
Research points to several barriers that can make this journey more difficult for women entrepreneurs. Mastercard’s 2025 research found that 53% of South African women identifiedgreater access to funding options as a key form of support, while others identified business skills, public funding and mentorship.
Research from the International Finance Corporation (IFC) similarly highlights access to finance, markets, knowledge and networks as important challenges for women-owned businesses.
These findings don’t mean that support for women entrepreneurs is absent. There are already funders, programmes, networks and organisations working to address these barriers.
The challenge is ensuring that promising ideas have pathways through which they can develop and grow.
This is especially relevant in ECD, where many of the challenges are complex and deeply connected to the realities of communities. An idea that starts as a response to a local challenge may require funding, expertise, evidence, partnerships and time to understand whether it can work more broadly.
The opportunity, then, is to understand what conditions allow promising ideas to move from possibility to practice.
Creating Pathways for Women’s Ideas
There is already a growing ecosystem supporting women entrepreneurs and innovators through funding, mentorship, business development, networks and market opportunities.
Development finance institutions, corporates, foundations, incubators, accelerators and impact investors all play a role in helping entrepreneurs navigate the journey from an idea to a sustainable organisation or business.
There is also growing recognition that women-owned businesses can contribute to economic participation, job creation and innovation.
In ECD, however, there is an additional opportunity to connect this entrepreneurial ecosystem with the needs of young children and caregivers.
Innovation does not always emerge from a traditional innovation start-up or a formal research institution. It can come from people who understand a challenge first-hand and have developed an idea for doing something differently.
This does not mean that every woman working in ECD is an entrepreneur or innovator. Nor does it mean that women should carry the responsibility for solving the sector’s challenges. It means there is an opportunity to ensure that women with promising ideas are connected to the funding, networks, expertise and opportunities that can help those ideas move forward.
The opportunity is to bring more of these ideas into the wider ECD innovation ecosystem, where they can be developed, tested, strengthened and, where they show promise, taken further.
Making More Room for Innovation
How can we better support mothers and their children during and after pregnancy? How can fathers and male caregivers be more meaningfully involved? How can we strengthen early learning and stimulation for young children? How can we develop solutions that work in the realities of South African communities and have the potential to reach more children?
Answering these questions requires different perspectives, different forms of expertise and a willingness to explore ideas that challenge the way things are currently done.
Women are already contributing across this landscape. The opportunity is to create more pathways for women with promising ideas to develop, test and expand them.
That means creating stronger connections between funding, mentorship, networks, evidence, expertise and opportunities to experiment. It means giving promising ideas room to be tested, challenged and refined, knowing that innovation rarely follows a straight line.
Funders, investors, partners, researchers, policymakers and advocates all have a role to play in making that possible. When we create the conditions for more women to turn ideas into solutions, we expand what is possible for young children and our society.
Read more insights and stories here.
Author: Dimpho Lephaila – Communications Associate at Innovation Edge