Supporting women’s ICT-based enterprises: a handbook for agencies in development

This handbook aims to provide support and ideas for women’s ICT-based interprises. The authors describe ‘enterprise’ as the entities with a business focus that have an interest sales and income. The handbook gives an overview of the advantages of supporting women’s ICT-based enterprises, especially the benefits to poor women in developing countries. The authors also include analytical tools as well as good practice guidance on the business, and an overview of gender specific aspects of these types of enterprises. A resource guide for further information on women’s ICT-based enterprises is also included at the end of this handbook.

The handbook several benefits for supporting women’s ICT-based enterprises, including the following:

• regular income from work enables women to contribute to their family’s welfare
• improved opportunity to purchase assets such as land, housing, and other physical goods for their family, as well as hardware and software equipment for their business
• personal and professional development through owning their own business. Women can develop entrepreneurial skills such as an understanding of cash flow, customer service, etc, by becoming involved in management activities and decision-making
• improvements in social relations, in the areas of business linkages, institutional linkages, and social and community linkages
• women become empowered, gaining confidence to apply new skills, tackle problems and deal with businesses and agencies. Women may gain status in their communities as a result, and may be able make some inroads into traditional gender biases

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PUBLISHER About: Women's ICT-Based Enterprise for Development

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