Women’s entrepreneurship development:

Ten years partnering for women's entrepreneurship: Supporting Job Creation and Economic Empowerment!

The ILO and Gender Equality

ILO since founding committed to promoting the rights of all women and men at work and achieving equality between them

International Labour Standards GC

Principle 6: elimination of discrimination in respect of employment and occupation

Targeted programmes and interventions aimed at redressing existing inequalities in the world of work

Setting the stage – The opportunities

25% to 33% of all private businesses owned by women

190 million women entrepreneurs in 59 countries (GEM, 2010)

If women entrepreneurs in the US started out with same capital as men, 6 million jobs in five years would be added — 2 million in the first year alone. (Center for Women’s Business Research)

Failure to achieve MDG target 3 on the promotion of gender equality and empowerment of women could reduce per capita income growth rates by 0.1–0.3 percentage points.

Setting the stage – The challenges

Some constraints faced by many women entrepreneurs:

Access to & control over financial & productive resources

Access to collateral (access to land)

Access to training, info, markets– occupational segregation

Household responsiblities– reduced mobility

Cultural norms & attitudes towards women as entrepreneurs

Link with WEP principles

UNGC-UNWomen WEP Principles (2009)

ILO-WED Strategy (2008)

Provide a set of considerations to help private sector focus on

key elements integral to promoting gender

equality in the workplace, marketplace and

community

Unleash the economic potential of women’s

enterprises to contribute to employment creation,

gender equality, economic growth, and

poverty reduction within the framework of the Decent Work Agenda

ILO WED outreach- 25 countries

Armenia

Azerbaijan

Belarus

Cambodia

Cameroon

Ethiopia

Kenya

Kyrgyzstan

Lao PDR

Lebanon

Lesotho

Malawi

Mali

Mozambique

Nigeria

Palestine

Rwanda

Senegal

South Africa

Tanzania

Tajikistan

Uganda

Uzbekistan

Viet Nam

Yemen

Zambia

Celebrating 10 years of WED!

10 achievements

1. Activities in over 25 countries

2. In 2 recent projects, over 110’000 people reached (80% women)

3. National and international networks of trainers built

4. 13 + tools for women’s entrepreneurship (in 22 languages)

5. Implementing a rights-based approach in enterprise development

6. Changing societal attitudes at the household level: 11% increase in men’s household chores - Vietnam

7. Month of the woman entrepreneurs celebrations in nine countries

8. Strengthened advocacy and networks of women entrepreneurs

9. Local supply of services to women entrepreneurs increased (22% increase with partners in Southern Africa)

10.Beneficiaries include some of the most marginalized and hard to reach: women with disabilities and women with HIV/AIDS

The ILO WED programme

•Making the policy and regulatory frameworks more gender sensitive and bringing women entrepreneurs into policy dialogue

•Promoting women entrepreneurs as role models

Foster an enabling environment for

women’s entrepreneurship

•Training tools to support women entrepreneurs to grow their businesses and strengthen their access to training & supports and other inputs.

Capacity building for national stakeholders

•Support government to produce policies that take women entrepreneurs’ needs into account – involvement of women entrepreneurs’ associations in advocacy.

Provide policy guidance and

research-based recommendations

•Building projects based on situational analysis, consultations and delivering through local partners

Design projects and approaches with local

stakeholders

WED programme: levels of action

Micro training & supports

Meso capacity of

institutions to promote WED – gender mainstreaming

Macro enabling

regulatory & legal environment – policy advice & assessments

Meta attitudes and cultural

norms – promotion of WEs

Gender mainstreaming of PSD & all relevant policies & programmes

Tools & levels

Micro GET Ahead, IYES,

SIYB, EYB, Action my business growth

Meso FAMOS self check,

WED Capacity building, women entrepreneurs’ association CB

Macro WED

assessments, gender sensitive value chain

Meta month of the woman

entrepreneur, working with men

Tools & levels

Gender sensitive value chain analysis

WED tools

Clustering services

Gender Equality and

mainstreaming

Access to info, markets &

productive inputs

Advocacy, Networks

& Voice

Photo

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Gender sensitive Management training, financial services & Financial Literacy

ILO WED in action

Cambodia www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmL4-3RbFGM&feature=share

ILO WED in action . . With WEs

South Africa- Fuse, Coca Cola Fortune & ILO www.youtube.com/watch?v=URmcNVKAPOs

Policy recommendations

Fostering social dialogue inclusive of women entrepreneurs ◦ National WED assessments (19 country assessments)

◦ Scoring of various dimensions covered

Request for Assessment & training of national assessors

Desk study & interviews,

situational analysis

Validation workshop

& finalisation

Launching

Dissemina-tion

Develop action plan

Remove systemic barriers

Two pronged approach is key: targeted

approach and removing systemic barriers

Rights based approach – women knowing

their rights and claiming them

Working with existing structures to gender

mainstream (including people with

disabilities)

By doing so….more chance of sustainability

Remove systemic barriers

Barriers are a challenge to move

Find champions and work together

Set achievable goals & milestones with

partners so progress can be seen,

measured and momentum maintained

Change takes time, partners and

resources

Immediate outcomes in ILO’s WED projects

Why partner on WED

Intersection between private and public sector interest

A question of efficiency & doing what you do best

Joining efforts can achieve better impact

Sustainability is hard to achieve alone

Build momentum to support women’s empowerment

Ideas for collaboration

1. Core Business/Supply Chain approach – supporting women entrepreneurs along the supply chains & in value chains through capacity building

2. Social Responsiblity approach – contribute

to national development priorities (link to ILO Tripartite Declaration of Principles concerning Multinational Enterprises and Social Policy – ILO MNE Declaration)

Ideas for collaboration

A few countries where we are currently seeking partners for new projects on

WED, based on country requests

Mali Algeria Cambodia Kyrgyzstan

Rwanda Egypt Lao PDR

Cameroon Yemen Mongolia

Burundi Sudan Nepal

Togo Iraq Viet Nam Bolivia

Cape vert Palestine Colombia

Senegal El Salvador

Your ideas and Q&A

Thank you

For more information: www.ilo.org/wed

Facebook: ILO-WED

Contact: Joni Simpson

simpson@ilo.org

Your ideas and Q&A

For more information on the ILO Helpdesk for Business, the ILO MNE Declaration and the joint ILO/UN Global Compact webinars

on the GC Labour Principles : www.ilo.org/business

Contact: Githa Roelans

roelans@ilo.org