9 April 2009 - “It is your turn now!” says the central banner at the large meeting hall of Hilton Hotel in Ankara where more than 400 participants will get together to talk about women entrepreneurship in Turkey. The forum is organised to celebrate the successful finalisation of an 18-month Women Entrepreneurship Support (WES) project.

The project is funded by the European Commission, implemented by ECORYS Research and Consulting (the Netherlands) in consortium with Cotecno Italy), CUOA (Italy), UNIDO with main beneficiary the Turkish Union of Tradesmen and Craftsmen (TESK) and the Unions of Chambers of Tradesmen and Craftsmen (ESOBs) in 25 provinces of Turkey.

The Women Entrepreneurship Forum is hosted by TESK and its President, Mr Bendevi Palandöken and by ECORYS International and its Vice Chairwoman, Ms Julia Djarova (picture). Speakers at the event are:

• Mr Egemen Bağiş, State Minister for EU Affairs and Chief Negotiator
• Mr Tibor Varadi, Counsellor, Deputy Head of the EC Delegation to Turkey
• Ambassador M. Oğuz Demiralp, Secretary General of EUSG
• Mr Muhsin Altun, PAO and Director of Central Finance and Contracts Unit
• Mr Mustafa Bektaş, Director Foreign Relations of TESK
• Ms Zeliha Űnaldi, Business Development Manager of ECORYS Turkey

At the event the recently appointed Spokeswoman of the National Tradeswomen and Craftswomen Council, Ms Dilek Şeker, being entrepreneur herself, will present a new women-entrepreneurs network, a spin off from the WES project.

As a candidate country for EU membership, the issues of women’s entrepreneurship and employment have been on the agenda of Turkey for quite a number of years. Women constitute half of the population in Turkey. Their participation to the labour force, however, is less than one fourth while this proportion in Europe is about 55%. Moreover, women entrepreneurs constitute only about 15% of all entrepreneurs in the country. Women in Turkey represent a huge unutilised resource for the social and economic development of the country. Some 20 months ago a Women Entrepreneurship Support (WES) Project was launched with the aim to boost women’s role in business and their contribution to their family budget, to the economy and ultimately to the country’s welfare.

The project carried out a wide range of activities: from individual consultancy to women, training and opportunities to exchange experience to credits; from personal guidance to group work and networking. These activities were provided in 25 provinces of Turkey through building up training centres within the structure of the beneficiary, TESK. Alongside the support offered to women who would like to start their own business activity, or to women who own micro-enterprises, the project worked intensively with TESK and ESOBs top management to ensure that support to women will be continued after the project has been completed. Women participation in the management structures of TESK and ESOBs was on the discussion agenda as well as support to a women networking platform. The top management of TESK and ESOBs have been very perceptive to the project’s ideas and have cooperated for and contributed to the success of the project. As a result WES project can report achievements much higher than the ones originally set:

• The number of applicants to be supported by the Women Entrepreneurship Support initiative reached 10 000. At the start of the project the expectations were to train about 4 500 women and to provide consultancy to 1 500. By March 2009, 6 291 women were trained and 2 755 got individual consultancy. 
• Despite the economic and financial crisis, 255 women of those trained and/or consulted under the project, started their own business, providing additional income to more than 750 families. Thirty percent of the start-ups are in the service sector, 39% in the production sector and 31% in trade.

ECORYS carried out an impact assessment of the WES project and some of the findings are:

• The project changed women’s attitude towards entrepreneurship. Some 89% of current business owners confirmed increased self-confidence in doing business as a result of participation in the project.
• 98% of the women stated that WES training and consultancy services positively contributed to their entrepreneurship competencies thus increasing their ability to compete.
• Impacts on households reflect increased household incomes of the families of women - new business start-ups. Some 83% of women, new entrepreneurs, stated that their new business activities have positively changed their role in family.
• The start-ups under the WES project employ 414 people and plan 301 additional staff to be employed within one year.
• 82% of the women already owning micro-enterprises, who took part in the project, find that the provided training and consultancy have influenced positively the growth of their business.

Even a conservative forecast on mid-term impact (till March 2010) of the WES project shows that:

• In total some 607 new businesses will be established by project’s participants;
• These will generate sales turnover of about 10.5 million YTL and will create 2 337 new jobs;
• Government benefits in terms of increased revenue from taxes and social payments and decreased unemployment benefits payments will be some 2 million YTL.

The project achieved also a remarkable cost-effectiveness:

• The costs per trained women is some EUR 61;
• The costs per consulted individual is some EUR 83;
• Compound training and consultancy costs per person are EUR 111, times lower than EU benchmarks.

At the Women Entrepreneurship Forum at Hilton Hotel in Ankara, women and men will continue discussing how to spread further the best practices the WES project is leaving behind; how to maintain the momentum and make more women believe in their entrepreneurship skills.

Almost 10 000 women have got higher self-confidence in enterprising with the help of the WES project and this number cannot only leave a track, but be a basis for multiplication.

Downloads
WES Achievement brochure (Turkish)
WES Achievement brochure (English)

WES Movie
To view the special WES movie, please click the image or click here.

For more information, please contact:

ECORYS, Rotterdam: 
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ECORYS, Ankara:
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