Women Entrepreneurship Promotion Training

Rationale and objective

The Hindu Kush Himalayan (HKH) region is dominated by agrarian communities with a large rural population engaged in subsistence agroforestry-based production on increasingly fragmented landholdings. Agroforestry-based enterprises are considered a primary means of reducing poverty and achieving food security by enhancing economic opportunities in HKH communities. Development initiatives to enhance women’s economic opportunities, such as the Kailash Sacred Landscape Conservation and Development Initiative (KSLCDI) in India, Nepal, and Tibet Autonomous Regions (TAR), have shown that women want to become involved in enterprises. For instance, KSLCDI-Nepal has been working on three value chain products (e.g., allo, ritha, nigalo) and the majority of enterprises are directly, or indirectly, handled by women. However, the development of entrepreneurship of rural women underpins their strength for three principal reasons:

• social norms and traditional values still hold women back from full participation in economic activities;
• inadequate access to financial services is a major stumbling block for women;
• and, inadequate business skills and access to markets hinder growth of women’s enterprises.

The women entrepreneurship training has been developed to enrich entrepreneurial skills of women and help  them improve business practices.  In specific, the training aims to:

• enhance and improve understanding of women in entrepreneurship development;
• promote local ownership among the women in KSLDCI identified value chain products and others business;
• and, to understand of challenges rural women entrepreneurs face and to learn to find solutions for themselves.

The workshop is tailored to ANCA council members to encourage inclusion of gender and social issues; utilisation of resources in a fair and equitable manner; to improve the internal gender and governance of the ANCA council; and to ultimately change in behaviour and practice of the ANCA council.  The workshop will focus on gender inclusion and internal governance issues; promote a more gender-fair at the ANCA council/institution; and conduct a self-assessment of internal gender and governance issues.

Participants

Participants are potential women entrepreneurs (at least 70 percent women) from three value chain products (e.g., allo, ritha, nigalo and also chiuri-beekeeping) of KSLDI-Nepal. In addition, three participants will attend from KSLDI-India with one staff from Central Himalayan Environment Association (CHEA), a partner organisation. The selection criteria’s of participants of potential women entrepreneurs are:

• literate
• under the age of 40
• possess a solid community reputation
• currently engaged in small business
• available to travel
• willing to learn
• supportive family members

Methodology

During this workshop, a self-assessment tool will be applied in the group discussion to begin monitoring and tracking of gender and governance issues of ANCA council. The team has adapted selective gender and governance guidelines of Cadman, 2014 – meaningful participation and deliberation as the key two principles of gender and governance.

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