Small enterprise development. Boosting employment

Profound structural changes are taking place in the economies of both the developed and developing world. Micro- and small enterprises have become important job generators, boosting employment around the world. One striking feature of this trend is the significant rise, especially in the past decade, in the number of women entrepreneurs, mainly in such enterprises

In most countries, women entrepreneurs not only have to contend with policy, regulatory and institutional environments which are unfriendly and have a bias against small enterprises, they also face obstacles and barriers simply because they are women. Relative to men, women do not have equal access to finance, assets, technology and services, they have relatively lower educational levels and restricted access to vocational training opportunities, they face culturally and socially rooted negative attitudes towards women in business, they have conflicting role demands and time constraints, and they often lack assertiveness and self-confidence. The majority of women working in micro- and small enterprises worldwide are still concentrated in a limited range of low-profit sectors with poor working conditions, most often in the informal sector, the very enterprises which are the most vulnerable to economic downturns.

However, more and more women are owners or managers of small modern enterprises in less traditional sectors which have a high potential for growth. These more fortunate women establish and develop their own enterprises because they seek economic independence, or flexible working hours, in the absence of adequate or reasonably priced child-care facilities, or because they want to overcome professional frustration arising from the "glass ceiling" preventing advancement.

As a result, there is a high degree of diversity among women small-scale entrepreneurs in terms of their motivations, socioeconomic status, types of businesses and potential for growth. This has important implications for the design, promotion and implementation of small enterprise development policies and programmes.

The ILO's activities in the field of women's entrepreneurship development cover research, technical cooperation, advisory services and the organization of meetings on the subject. As far as possible, ILO's technical cooperation activities in this field use a "holistic" approach; that is, they provide the building-blocks needed for the women to succeed in business, by designing and implementing programmes in skills and entrepreneurship training, productivity improvement, managerial capacity-building, how to access required resources, institution-building and strengthening, policy advice, etc.

The ILO's advisory services deal mainly with the formulation of policies and regulations, and the elaboration of programmes which are conducive to the creation and growth of enterprises. To address issues related to microenterprise development it is necessary to bring gender issues into the legal and regulatory framework governing micro- and small enterprise development. In particular, it requires measures to address underlying gender inequalities in access to resources, institutions and decision-making processes, so as to enable gender-free access to small enterprise development programmes. It also requires macroeconomic and social policy. In addition, attention is also focused on ensuring that policies and regulations promote the integration of informal sector enterprises into the economic mainstream by progressively upgrading their standards and practices.

This attention to gender concerns will increase within the framework of the ILO's BESED programme (Boosting Employment through Small Enterprise Development) to match the growing importance of female entrepreneurship. The gender component of BESED will strengthen its cooperation with local partners involved in small enterprise development: governments, employers' and workers' organizations, chambers of commerce and associations of small enterprises.

BESED gender strategy

Ensure that gender concerns are effectively taken into account in the planning, implementation and evaluation of all BESED programmes, products and publications
Develop new gender-based approaches to small enterprise development
Develop women-specific pilot programmes and products, where gender imbalances exist and as a means of redressing them, bearing in mind the gender context
Provide ongoing support, awareness-raising and training in gender analysis for BESED and related field staff in Multidisciplinary Teams (MDTs) and projects

Gender! A Partnership of Equals
Geneve: International Labour Office, 2000. 115 p.

Small enterprise development
Boosting employment

Gender! A Partnership of Equals Geneve: International Labour Office, 2000. 115 p.

Small enterprise development Boosting employment

Gender! A Partnership of Equals
Geneve: International Labour Office, 2000. 115 p.

Small enterprise development
Boosting employment