The Women Entrepreneurship Development Project / Skills Development

• Worked with Transtec, a company based in Belgium.

The Women Entrepreneurship Development Project / Skills Development Program entailed the support of the government of Ethiopia in expanding the private sector and boosting the expansion of the sector most notably boosting those of SMEs owned or partly owned by female entrepreneurs.

RRD was involved in conducting a Training Needs Assessments among the target group and research and advice on the organization of TVET structures in the country as to how to best deliver training to this target group.

The Government of Ethiopia (GoE) has launched a 63 million dollar Women Entrepreneurship Development Project (WEDP) primarily financed by the World Bank. The WEDP is a national project that was to run for five years with a main objective of increasing the earnings and employment of companies owned or partly owned by female entrepreneurs. In total, 20.000 entrepreneurs have been reached during the project period. RRD together with Transtec, a consultancy company residing in Belgium is tasked with the implementation of this program.

The Women Entrepreneurship Development Training program has been designed so that the needs of female entrepreneur participants are identified and the necessary capacity building would be planned for, organized and implemented. Given the indications from the targeted group that comprehensive training over a longer time period tailored to their needs are necessary to grow their business, the aim of the entrepreneurship training program is to offer such training to all WEDP members.

The project consists of three components:

• Component 1 gives access to micro finance.
• Component 2 gives access to entrepreneurial and technical skills training, technology and cluster development and introduction of a quality and productivity enhancing program.
• Component 3 consist of Project Management, Advocacy and Outreach, Monitoring & Evaluation and finally an Impact Evaluation.