Resource point between entrepreneuric women – Module 2: how to make the change

While companies managed by women are developing regularly worldwide, contributing to household income and the growth of national economies, women are still faced with challenges in maintaining successful companies due to the lack of funding, less skills and social constraints. You will find below several program approaches that donors and creators of the women's entrepreneurship project can adopt to meet these challenges.

Commercial development training programs

The level of business sense and the skills of a microphone or a small business owner can be the key to their continuous success. Business Development Services (BDS) offer training, resources and support for women entrepreneurs to help develop and maintain their businesses. Generally, these services include basic daily management training, such as how to keep up to accounts, manage taxes and understand the rules and regulations of conformity. They can also focus on the long -term strategy and success of a business of a business plan to target specific markets, as well as product innovation within business groups and incubators.

Beyond training in commercial skills, BDS should include elements that contribute to companies belonging to women in other invaluable ways, such as:

• General skills and life skills. Customer service and negotiations are generally necessary general skills for women entrepreneurs to help their companies take place gently, while life skills such as family planning, nutrition and self -confidence allow women to maintain their companies to operate. Personal challenges at home can actually hinder business growth.
• Flexibility. Programs should take into account childcare constraints, family commitments, transport and other cultural factors that can prevent them from participating in training.
• Awareness of the genre of the family and the community. A large part of the success of entrepreneurs depends on acceptance within their communities and their families. If these groups have a better understanding of their difficulties and support their commercial efforts, the more likely they are to succeed.
• Networking. When women are twinned with mentors and coaches or have access to other women entrepreneurs to similar experiences, they benefit from exposure to public, private and useful peers. Network in the clusters helps women obtain an advantage thanks to the pooling of labor, buying bulk of raw materials, joint lobbying to local authorities or joint access to finance. For women entrepreneurs, being part of a cluster can develop their businesses faster and help fight cultural standards that can limit women's income opportunities.

Access to financing programs

Access to finance is one of the most common challenges that entrepreneurs are confronted and this is particularly true for women who are more hampered by the lack of personal identification, the lack of goods in their own name and the need for the contraindication of their husband on many documents. Efforts to facilitate access to finance for women entrepreneurs generally include initiatives that reform restrictive banking and regulation policies. These reforms accept less traditional forms of guarantee, examine the will of a lender to reimburse and simplify the business register. They also help financial institutions to develop innovative loan and savings products for women entrepreneurs.

In order to ensure the success of women's access to finance, program creators should consider the following:

• Consult women's groups. Before developing new financial products, assess the need and the scope of these products with the help of community women, who will be the main consumers.
• Ensure disaggregate data collection on gender. Make sure financial institutions are considering a genre in research and analyzing the data of their policies as well as the analysis of cash flows, credit history and less conventional forms of guarantee.
• Support gender sensitivity. Promote training of the financial community to fill the gaps in access to sexes to finance and make sure that female customers are treated equally and equitable.
• Build infrastructure. Entrepreneurs often do not have a support network, therefore the training of partnerships with local organizations helps to open communication channels between entrepreneurs and lenders, which increases access to capital.

Access to ICT

With the explosion of smartphones and the use of mobile phone around the world, the inclusion of information and communication technologies (ICT) in any program is a must. Entrepreneurs should receive training on how to use ICT, not only for commercial needs such as online banking services and registers, but also to access health and education information for their family and their lives overall. These services should also present ICT and new commercial companies to women in themselves.

Successful ICT training programs should:

• Ensure fair access. Entrepreneurs should be able to access the appropriate devices and connect to the Internet or communicate profitably.
• Approach a limited exposure. TIC programs for women may need to take a slower pace to include basic training in literacy, incorporating basic communication through the use of text messaging and emails.