The project contributes to the national goal of economically empowering Yemeni women and encouraging them to engage in self-employment or improve their existing businesses.
Given the ILO’s experience in enterprise development in general, and with regard to women entrepreneurship specifically, The Small Micro Enterprise Promotion Service (SMEPS) approached ILO to extend its technical expertise in Yemen. The Women Entrepreneurship Development Programme in Yemen supports SMEPS through developing and administering training sessions and material development as well as the selection assessment and certification of trainers.
Objectives
By introducing and institutionalizing a high quality, needs-based and practical ILO business management training programme targeting women, Women Entrepreneurship Development Programme in Yemen aims to:
contribute to the national economic and social goal of empowering Yemeni women; and
encourages women to engage in self-employment or improve their existing businesses.
Main Activities
Conduct a training needs assessment (TNA) with the potential beneficiaries;
draft a training programme outline based on the TNA which includes trainers’ certification requirements;
draft the content of the training package based on available ILO materials such as the Start and Improve Your Business and the training package entitled Gender and Entrepreneurship Together - GET Ahead for women in enterprise.
conduct a training-of-trainers workshop targeting selected female trainers from identified training institutions;
coach and support trainers in the delivery of a number of training sessions during field testing of material and group follow-up sessions;
test the appropriateness of training materials and assess the delivery of trainers in a number of training workshops targeting entrepreneurs;
refine the training package and finalize it based on the results of a pilot test; and
assess and evaluate the quality of the training delivered by the trainers as well as certify them if they successfully complete certification requirements.
Outcomes
An ILO business management training programme targeting women is developed and operational in five pre-selected training institutions; and
the capacity of 30 national Yemeni women trainers is built to enable them to provide business management training and group-based follow-up training to small women-owned enterprises.
