The purpose of this study was to investigate challenges faced by and opportunities open to women entrepreneurs in Botswana. In the current study 400, women entrepreneurs were selected using stratified random sampling procedure to participate in the study. A structured questionnaire was used for data collection. One-Way ANOVA and regression analysis were used for data analysis. Results showed that women entrepreneurs face a complex web of challenges amongst which are access to finance, lack of training leading to lack of technical skills, lack of knowledge of sources of financing and technical support, high competition in the market, marginalization of women, lack of knowledge marketing strategies were some of the major challenges affecting the success of businesses of women entrepreneurs. It was also shown in the study that the above challenges which have been identified explained 52.69% of lack of success by women in their entrepreneurship ventures. The study also showed that the legal and regulatory environment in Botswana is highly conducive and supportive of entrepreneurship ventures for women and also that the Government of Botswana has set up a number of institutions to support women entrepreneurs to successfully start and run their business ventures. Key findings of the study were that there is great potential for women entrepreneurs in Botswana to grow their businesses especially when considering the existing legal and regulatory environment which is conducive. It was also found in the study that despite the myriad of challenges women entrepreneurs in Botswana currently face, there are opportunities for capacity building opportunities open for them to take advantage of to improve their business skills and effectively manage their ventures. Among some of the key recommendations for mitigating the challenges women entrepreneurs face are that they should be engaged in entrepreneurship training to equip them with basic business skills, and also policies that are pro-women need to be enacted by the Botswana government to deal with issues of segregation of women in the economic field.

Keywords: Entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, women, challenges, opportunities, business ventures