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the Small and Micro Enterprise Promotion Service (SMEPS)
are additionally strengthened in their capacities.
Yemeni businesswomen need more support than ever –
though it is challenging to reach out to them. In 2015, the
GIZ project therefore started to support its Yemeni partner
SMEPS to reach out to businesswomen in the country through
social media. The aim of the new approach – WhatsApp
Consultancy for Businesswomen – is to help female business
owners with limited freedom of movement to stay in business
and to safeguard jobs during the war.
In an initial pilot, 300 Yemeni women who had participated
in International Labour Organization (ILO) start-up train-
ing received business development services from six female
advisors through WhatsApp over the course of one month.
WhatsApp groups of a maximum of 20 women were estab-
lished, an advisory manual drafted and clear rules set. Women
profited from the direct consultancy offered by the six female
consultants, but also from advice and motivation from their
respective peer groups. While some groups were categorized
by professions, others were open to all types of businesses. One
of these professional groups was specifically for midwives. Not
only did the 80 members of this group manage to stay in busi-
ness, but some of them even managed to expand their business
with the help of the consultants and their peer groups. They
hired an additional 120 women and the average income of these
200 women has increased by 220 per cent.
The example of one midwife illustrates that there are additional
positive impacts of the measure. One midwife from the northern
part of the country had to flee to another region as her house was
bombed. She considered selling her medical tools as she did not
see a chance for her, as a internally displaced person (IDP), to
find work and be accepted as a professional midwife in her new
village. The other businesswomen and the consultant convinced
her through WhatsApp to try again. They advised her to offer
her services for two weeks for free in order to actively promote
her skills. She also received advice on how to develop a new
financial concept. She tried, and managed to start taking money
for her services. Today she is making a decent income. She even
hired an additional person and organizes and sells medicine to
the villagers because, due to the ongoing war, there is neither a
pharmacy nor a health station available nearby.
The WhatsApp measure provided by SMEPS has success-
fully created trust among businesswomen from different
groups and backgrounds of society. Even women who come
from opposing geographical areas started to interact and to
support each other as peer-to-peer advisors.
Reportedly, the trained businesswomen contribute signifi-
cantly (if not most) to the household income and one can
observe increasing support by husbands and other male
family members. Even though the WhatsApp consultancy
was officially finished after one month, the groups still exist,
with businesswomen supporting and advising each other.
These two case studies were submitted for the GIZ Gender
Competition of 2016 and represent two of many successful
examples of GIZ’s engagement in gender equality and women’s
empowerment. Women’s empowerment was also a central
feature of Germany’s presidency of G7
4
in 2015 and features as
one of the key issues of Germany’s G20
5
Presidency in 2017.
The German Government’s commitments, which are binding
for GIZ, find their reflection also in the German Sustainability
Strategy, the BMZ Gender Action Plan 2016-2020 and the
European Union Gender Action Plan 2016-2020.
GIZ partnered with the Yemeni Small and Micro Entreprise Promotion Service (SMEPS) to reach out to businesswomen in the country through the WhatsApp
Consultancy for Businesswomen
Image: GIZ
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