New ILO tools to boost women entrepreneurship

International Labour Organisation

The ILO flag. The UN agency has developed new tools to boost women entrepreneurship.

Photo credit: Photo | Pool

What you need to know:

  • ILO reckons that women entrepreneurs often experience harassment in registering and operating their enterprises.
  • Business development service providers also don’t target women entrepreneurs. These are challenges it envisions to address with the new strategies.

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) has developed tools for boosting women’s entrepreneurship as the world moves to building back better from the ruins of Covid-19.

In its updated Recommendation No. 189, which provides for general conditions to increase job creation in small and medium enterprises (SMEs), the agency encourages governments and organisations to adopt its tools and services to promote women’s entrepreneurship.

These include WE-Check, a self-assessment ‘gender audit’ meant for use by organisations working with SMEs. It has also developed Gender and Entrepreneurship Together Ahead tool to train poor women entrepreneurs in business skills and how to obtain support through groups, networks and institutions.

At the same time, it recommends that SME stakeholders adopt a women-tailored service—Start and Improve Your Business training. This it says would enable women entrepreneurs to address gender-based barriers to growth.

ILO reckons that women entrepreneurs often experience harassment in registering and operating their enterprises. Business development service providers also don’t target women entrepreneurs. These are challenges it envisions to address with the new strategies.

It recognises the “growing importance of women in the economy” and calls on countries to establish “measures designed specifically for women who are or wish to become entrepreneurs.”

Data from ILO indicates that in the developing world, women workers make up to 60 per cent of non-agricultural workers, while they constitute up to 90 per cent of street vendors and 80 per cent of home-based workers.

In a video message on Micro, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (MSMEs) Day, June 27, ILO director-general Guy Ryder said: “Governments, social partners and the private sector all need to come together to provide MSMEs with an enabling environment to be real engines for decent job creation and part of a green and inclusive economic recovery.”

He said small enterprises need support to improve productivity and resilience. “Indeed, a key task for the ILO and our partners is to build and strengthen support ecosystems that help MSMEs and their workers achieve their economic, social and environmental objectives.”