Women's entrepreneurship development requires a multi-facetted approach. Whereas many countries have experience in providing training and financial services to women entrepreneurs, these initiatives often fail to generate the expected results when the setting in which women operate their businesses is not conducive. Complementary efforts are needed to create an enabling policy environment and to make sure that the relevant institutions and support structures favour women in their economic endeavours. This calls for capacity-building and awareness-raising at multiple levels. It also requires certain adaptations to tools and methodologies commonly used by business development service providers. This training course is delivered by leading international experts drawing on experiences from different countries in applying an integrated approach to women's entrepreneurship development. Participants will become acquainted with a range of tools for assessing and improving the enabling environment, building the capacity of Women Entrepreneurs' Associations and integrating gender equality into value chain development, Making Markets Work for the Poor initiatives and business training.
The course is designed for people working in the areas of employment strategy, business development, active labour market policy, gender equality, and local and rural development. It addresses a mixed audience of development actors, including senior government officials, representatives of workers ' and employers' organizations, programme managers and staff of civil society organizations.