UNITED NATIONS INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT ORGANIZATIONeconomy environment employmentDeveloping rural and women entrepreneurshipa path out of povertya path out of povertyDeveloping rural and women entrepreneurshipUNITED NATIONS INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT ORGANIZATIONVienna, 2003The designations employed and the presentation of material in this publication does not implythe expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the Secretariat of the United NationsIndustrial Development Organization concerning the legal status of any country, territory, cityor area, or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. Theopinions, figures and estimates set forth are the responsibility of the authors and should notnecessarily be considered as reflecting the views or carrying endorsement of UNIDO. The des-ignations, “developed” and “developing” economies are intended for statistical convenience anddo not necessarily express a judgement about the stage reached by a particular country orarea in the development process. Mention of firm names or commercial products does notimply endorsement by UNIDO.This document has not been formally edited.CONTENTSIntroduction 51. CHALLENGES 6Poverty: No exit? 7Millenium development goals 7The neglect of rural development: a precarious imbalance 7Gender inequality: impediment to growth and poverty reduction 8Building a “bottom-up growth strategy” 92. RURAL AND WOMEN ENTREPRENEURSHIP DEVELOPMENT 11Objective 12Approach 12Expected impact 12Main services and methodologies 13UNIDO programme principles 163. PROJECT EXPERIENCES 17Mozambique: streamlining regulatory business environment in the provinces 18Uganda: private sector assists private sector 19Central America: linking private sector associations, NGOs and universities 21Pacific Islands: promoting entrepreneurship to create income and employment opportunities 23Rwanda: strengthening the role of women entrepreneurs in a post conflict situation 24Uganda: preparing youth for entrepreneurship – curriculum development 26Viet Nam: establishing a “traditional craft village” for export promotion 27Morocco: promoting productivity improvements in rural women’s businesses 28Kenya: socio-economic empowerment of women entrepreneurs 30People living in rural peripheries, especially women, shoulder the burden of the worlds’ poverty.This brochure describes UNIDO’s “Rural andWomen Entrepreneurship (RWE) DevelopmentProgramme”, which is managed by the Smalland Medium Enterprises Branch. As a core contribution of UNIDO to poverty reduction,the programme supports rural people andwomen in their aspirations for entrepreneurialinitiatives. People living in the rural peripheries, and espe-cially women, shoulder the burden of the world’spoverty, particularly in the Least DevelopedCountries and sub-Saharan Africa. They havebeen deprived for too long from participatingin the opportunities and benefits of economicgrowth and globalization.Reducing urban-rural disparities and genderinequalities is a crucial element for any povertyreduction strategy. Mobilizing the potential productivity of rural people and particularly ofwomen is indispensable to achieve the resilienteconomic growth that will pull people above thepoverty line. Therefore, the RWE Programme aims at pro-moting a conducive business environment andat building institutional and human capacitiesthat will encourage and support the entrepre-neurial initiatives of rural people and women. Part 1 of this brochure describes the challengesto be addressed, followed by a description ofUNIDO’s approach, services and methodologies forrural and women entrepreneurship developmentin Part 2. Project experiences are presented in Part3, illustrating the results UNIDO has achievedthrough its technical cooperation projects.5INTRODUCTION61. ChallengesPoverty: no exit?The widening gap between rich and poor world-wide is a major threat to global security andeconomic integration. About half of the planet’spopulation are poor, living on less than two dollars a day. Poverty is a vicious circle, beingboth the major cause and the effect of a situa-tion, in which no opportunities seem to exist forthe poor to help themselves.Millennium developmentgoalsEradicating poverty is a shared objective of the international community. The MillenniumDeclaration of the United Nations stipulates the target of halving the proportion of theworld’s people whose income is less than onedollar a day by the year 2015. Another millen-nium development goal is to promote genderequality and empower women as effective waysto combat poverty, hunger and disease and tostimulate development that is truly sustainable.Efforts are underway to put in place macro-economic, structural and social policies and pro-grammes to promote growth and reduce poverty.To that end, Governments in 45 countries* haveprepared or are preparing Poverty ReductionStrategy Papers (PRSP) in a participatory processinvolving civil society and development partners.They try to understand and analyse some fun-damental questions: Who are the poor? Wheredo they live? What are the main barriers forthem to move out of poverty? — The answerscan help setting priorities for policy choice. The neglect of rural development: a precariousimbalanceA staggering 75 per cent of the world’s poor livein rural areas. And yet, resources and policiescontinue to be biased in favour of urban devel-opment. An imbalance in development is theconsequence, with detrimental effects on bothrural and urban people. With rural areas not able to provide enoughopportunities for people to sustain their lives,the burden of supporting the poor and ruralpopulation falls increasingly upon cities. Thegrowing number of rural poor seeking work in overcrowded cities stretch social and physicalinfrastructure and economic opportunities in theurban areas beyond their capacity.7• 1.2 billion people live on less than US$ 1 per day • 2.8 billion people live on less than US$ 2 per day • 75 per cent of the poor live in rural areas • 60 per cent of the world’s poor are women and girls• The average income in the 20 richest countries is 37 times higher than in the 20poorest countries• Higher inequality tends to retard growth in poor countries and encourage growthin richer placesRural development and gender equality are key elements of strategies to reduce poverty and create income and employmentopportunities. * As of February 2003.On the