Skopje, 21 May- Local Governments can do a lot to support women entrepreneurship, such as giving assistance in the provision of access to capital, land and facilities, provision of support for building the capacities of small and medium businesses and business women, etc.

These are some of the recommendations of the study financed by SNV “Local government support to women entrepreneurship in Republic of Macedonia” which was presented yesterday in a conference in Skopje. The participants of the conference- female entrepreneurs, representative of NGOs sector and local governments, - were addressed by the Dutch Ambassador, H.E Simone Filippini. The Ambassador shared her experience as an entrepreneur before joining the public sector. “Supporting entrepreneurship is good for the economy if we think that most of our economy in Holland is based on small and medium businesses. The state should do more to support women to get into the world of business because it’s an investment for the society and for economic growth”- Mrs Filippini said.

The Regional Director of SNV, Ms Courtney Bickert, stressed that entrepreneurship is not limited to the private sector. “SNV is here to call on Local Governments to be as innovative as entrepreneurs and we are prepared to support them with capacity building. We consider this conference just a start to our work to build further capacities at the local level to better cope with the challenges of local economic development”.

This view was supported by the President of the National Council for Entrepreneurship and competitiveness, Mirjana Aspostolova who stressed the need for “joint action” in supporting women entrepreneurship initiatives. The Deputy Minister of Economy, Metodij Hadzi, presented some of the government initiatives in this field, such as the forum of SMEs, educational programs for women in Tetovo region, the self-employment project, and formalizing informal businesses.

The participants followed with interest the main findings of the study presented by Andrijana Bogranovska Djurivic and discussed ways to improve the environment for women entrepreneurs. Three business women and four representatives of women-led NGOs working in the business sector shared their experiences and engaged in a lively discussion with the audience.

For getting a copy of the study, please contact SNV office in Skopje :      St. Orce Nikolov no.109 1000 Skopje Tel/fax: +389-2-3217322/1/0                      

or write to Violeta Madzova, SNV advisor,  at vmadzova@snvworld.org