Fostering Gender Equality - Meeting the Entrepreneurship and Microfinance Challenge

Documents

Project participants produced eight country reports on the environment for female entrepreneurs. Data collection for the reports was based on a Scorecard matrix covering six dimensions:
  • General National Context for Entrepreneurship
  • Gender Equality in Society
  • Gender Equality in Labour Market Inclusion and Welfare Bridges to Self-Employment
  • Gender Equality in Entrepreneurship and Self-Employment
  • Gender Equaltiy in Support Structures for Entrepreneurship
  • Gender Equality in Access to Finance
The country reports were brought together in a comparative European Report.

You may download the reports here:

Additional documents

Madrid Conference

On 13th and 14th of December 2007 EMN organised the Transnational Conference “Fostering Gender Equality - Meeting the Entrepreneurship and Microfinance Challenge” in collaboration with Women’s World Banking Spain. It represented the culminating point of the European funded project with the same title. While the first day focussed on equality and economy in Spain, the second day dealt with the European dimension of gender equality, microfinance and entrepreneurship. All in all 171 persons participated at the conference.

For more information on the conference sessions, please cklick here.

You can download the minutes of the Conference here.

For a short report on the highlights of the Conference, please go to the EU Equal homepage:
http://ec.europa.eu/employment_social/equal/news/200802-micromad_en.cfm

Exchange visits

Within the framework of the European Gender Equality Programme, EMN organised two exchange visits. The purpose of these exchange visits was to learn about strategies and best practices for supporting women’s entrepreneurship and access to microloans.
  • The first visit took place the 5-6 February in the United Kingdom. The 18 participants visited the cdfa headquarters in London and the five host organisations located in different cities, and were able to meet clients and institutional partners, as well as being explained the specificities of the organisation visited. (more information on the UK exchange visit)
  • The second visit took place on 13-14 September in Slovakia. All in all 17 participants visited Integra Foundation headquarters in the Slovakian capital Bratislava as well as two Integra branch offices, the so-called Happy Hand Centres in the towns of Lučenec and Ružomberok. In these towns, participants also met with entrepreneurs and visited Integra’s partner organisations. (more information on the Slovakia exchange visit)


Pilot Project Reports

Pilot project evaluations exist for each pilot project. If you are interested in them, please send an email to Maria Franco.