Women Entrepreneurship in the catching-up economies in South-East Europe: what support is needed?

1. Women Entrepreneurship in the catching-up economies in South-East Europe: what support is needed? Malinka Koparanova Senior Social Affairs Officer and Gender Focal Point First Forum for South East European Women Entrepreneurs Istanbul, Turkey, 21-22 September 2010

2. Outline • Overview of women entrepreneurship in South-Eastern Europe: A comparative look • Major obstacles affecting women’s entrepreneurship: general to specific • What support is needed? • What is the UNECE involvement in promoting women entrepreneurs Conclusions

3. Overview of women entrepreneurship in South-Eastern Europe: A comparative look 1.1 Economic overview of SEE region 1.2 Key aspects of women’s participation

4. 1.1 Economic overview of SEE region • Positive trends over the past years following a painful transition to market-based economy • Increased openness and EU integration • Structural reforms • SEE- severely hit by the crisis since 2008, long term consequences on growth and employment • SMEs and microenterprises – heavily impacted by the crisis; a recovery provides with new opportunity

5. Real GDP Growth Rates SEE

6. 1.2 Key aspects of women entrepreneurs’ participation • How are women presented in the labour market? • Do men and women participate equally during all their life? • Do countries follow similar patterns? • Are women more likely to be self-employed? • What are the occupational and sectoral gender structures across the region?

7. Women are under-represented in the labour marketin SEE as compared to EU Source: ILO Laborsta, EU15: Eurostat, Age Group 15+

8. Average Gender Gap in the Economic Activity Rate, SEE Men's Economic Activity Rate minus Women's Economic Activity Rate Source: ILO Laborsta, EU15: Eurostat

9. Economic activity of men and women by age Source: (BA) Labour force survey, ILO Labosta

10. Economic activity of men and women by age (cont.1) Source: (BA) Labour force survey, ILO Labosta

11. Source: Eurostat

12. Women go less for self-employment both in SEE and EU but SEE lags behind women-employers Source: ILO Laborsta, 2008 data

14. Source: ILO Laborsta, 2008 data

15. Source: ILO Laborsta

16. Dataset: OECD Gender, Institutions and Development Database 2009 (GID-DB)

17. Tertiary students by field of study Source: UNECE Statistical Division Database, compiled from national and international (Eurostat and UNESCO Institute for Statistics) official sources.

18. 2. Major obstacles affecting women’s entrepreneurship: general to specific • First group: disadvantages for women in the business environment • Second group: entrepreneurship process and its gender dimension

19. First group of obstacles: I. Legal, economic and social environment in which women start and develop their business • Gap in implementation of laws • Regulatory framework, administartive procedures • Unceratinty related to political conflics • Uncertainties due to slow and uneven transition, privatization, institutions • External shocks, such as the global and economic crisis

20. Second group of obstacles: II.Specific conditions for the entrepreneurship process • Property and access to finance • Stereotypes, lack of support by the family and society • Role models • Lack of experience – human capital (quality) • Education with a particular focus entrepreneurship related skills and knowledge • Lack of networks • Access to child care, and family care

21. What support is needed? • Policies creating enabling environment for women at national, regional and municipality level: gender-sensitive to target obstacles (II), industrial policies. • Institutional support is crucial: at macro and micro-levels, including specialized agencies/departments for start-up for women with packages of projects including information and consultancy services • Financial support

22. What support is needed? (cont) • SMEs polices for all stages of financing, access to markets and services, technology, R&D • Education and Knowledge: targeted programmes for enhancing women’s knowledge and skills • Providing positive role models • Networking opportunities • Engage all society

23. 4. What is the UNECE’s involvement in promoting women entrepreneurs • Monitoring, data collection and methodology on sex-disaggregated data for the UNECE member states • Economic policies and their impact on gender, including in various activities of the UNECE programmes, such as transport, enterprises development, innovation and competitiveness of economies, transport, environment. • Raising awareness of issues and improving understanding of women’s entrepreneurship

24. 4. What is the UNECE’s involvement in promoting women entrepreneurs (cont.) • Initiating and supporting regional dialogue and exchange of best practices • Preparation of policy recommendation to assist governments in implementing their commitments as in the Beijing Platform for Action and the Millennium Declaration • Capacity building: training programmes for women entrepreneurs in support systems and use of ICTs

25. Conclusion: • Women entrepreneurship needs support through gender-sensitive policies: • at all levels of policy making • both for start-ups and to grow; • institutions and coherent tools, • public-private coordination;

26. Conclusion: • To make this support efficient, understanding of the needs of and demand for such activities in society has to be improved (data collection and monitoring); • Actions based on multistakeholder partnerships of international organizations, governments, NGOs and civil society.