Women business incubation centres planned

After successful experience of a pilot project in Lahore, the Women Entrepreneurship Development Cell (WEDC) has decided to establish 'Women Business Incubation Centres' in other regions including Peshawar and Karachi.
Project Director WEDC Aisha Amjad told Business Recorder that under the pilot project the women entrepreneurs' (WEs) problems would be addressed and 'hands-on support' would be provided to them including business infrastructure, fully furnished air conditioned offices with telephone and internet connectivity, display area for exhibition purposes along with administrative and business development support to encourage female participation in economic development.
Aisha Amjad said that the establishment of female-managed facility in Lahore was a landmark for WEs and a platform for business networking. Those ladies operating their businesses through this centre took the courageous step for making their presence known in a more commercial manner (moving from home based business to a commercial setting), she added.
Initially, various facilities would be offered to 35 entrepreneurs and it has been planned to cover another 1,000 women entrepreneurs in next three years, she maintained. She said that Small and Medium Enterprise Development Authority (Smeda) as part of its broader strategy to support SMEs had established Women Entrepreneurship Development Cell (WEDC) in 2002 to cater the needs of women entrepreneurs (WEs) in Pakistan.
This cell is an independent and exclusive unit dedicated for serving women entrepreneurs. Primary role of this cell is to conceive, initiate and execute women entrepreneurship programmes, and provide business services and business infrastructure for women-owned and managed businesses, she said.
WEDC remains in touch with all the representative women entrepreneurs' forums including Chambers of Commerce and Industry, WE Associations and other government agencies to continuously learn from their experiences, she added.
Aisha Amjad said that the design and the rationale of WEDC emanated from a detailed study of 150 women enterprises titled 'Improving the Bargaining Power of Women' that was conducted in collaboration with International Labour Organisation (ILO) and helped identifying major business constraints faced by women entrepreneurs.
The findings of the survey report also fed in the design of Smeda WEDC and contributed in subsequent launch of our initiatives. Methodology that Smeda follows at its WEDC is based on two-tier approach in its service delivery. First tier entertains to the requests of new start-ups or potential entrepreneurs, she added.
She said that the major part of the services relates to informational services along side training requests and finally culminating into identification of investment opportunities and customised business plan development.
The second tier of services looks beyond the traditional business support function and goes an extra step in providing business services and business infrastructure through our incubation centre at subsidised costs, she added.
So far WEDC achieved major milestones including women entrepreneurs network, training programme for entrepreneurship development, WE-oriented pre-feasibility studies such as day-care centre, high and Montessori school, internet café, private hospital, medical transcription, boutique, flower shop, wooden furniture workshop, beauty clinic, business plan development, facilitation for financing for securing credit from various financial institutions, like First Women Bank Ltd, Punjab Small Industries Corporation, Prime Bank, marketing assistance through providing opportunity of participation in local and international exhibitions, she said.
The ILO report 'Improving the Bargaining Power of Women' identified that most women have no access to actionable information or incentives or initiatives introduced by private sector or government bodies for WE business development nor have any proper knowledge regarding the roles of various organisations, Aisha added. She said to bridge this information gap, Smeda launched Pakistan's First Exclusive Women Entrepreneurs Web Portal (Women Entrepreneurs Information Network).