Women entrepreneurs make up 22% of private businesspersons in Azerbaijan

Two memorandums of understanding (MoU) were signed today within the framework of the International Women's Forum on Social Entrepreneurship, Azernews reports.

The MoUs were signed between the Association for the Development of Women's Entrepreneurship and international partners.

One of the memorandums was signed by the Chairman of the Azerbaijani Association, Sakina Babayeva, and CEO of the WEIA, Viktoriya Nalbandova. Another memorandum was signed by Chairperson of the Association for the Development of Women's Entrepreneurship Sakina Babayeva and Managing Director of Mediaost Anna Leonenko.

Sakina Babayeva noted that 24 [female] entrepreneurs from Azerbaijan, Russia, and Germany are developing ideas for joint projects in various fields of social benefit.

“These projects covered society, ecology, education, media, culture, and other socially important topics. These projects are based on UN Sustainable Development Goals 4 – Quality education, 7 – Affordable and clean energy, and 17 – Partnerships for the Goals,” she said.

She added that the Women's Social Entrepreneurship Forum project is supported by the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs within the framework of the "Eastern Partnership and Russia program", which will be a great contribution to the development of economic relations between the three countries.

Orkhan Mammadov, Chairman of the Board of the Azerbaijani Small and Medium Business Development Agency (SMBDA), also addressed the event. He noted in his speech that the share of women entrepreneurs among private entrepreneurs in Azerbaijan has reached 22 percent.

According to Mammadov, 49 percent of the economically active population of the country are women and SMBDA encourages women to self-employment and entrepreneurship.

“With the support of the German International Cooperation Organization (GIZ), studies were carried out in 2021 on the development of social entrepreneurship in Azerbaijan and recommendations have been developed," the board chairman added.

Besides, according to him, in order to promote social entrepreneurship, SME development centers operating in various regions of Azerbaijan held numerous training and webinars on relevant topics.

"In total, about 4,000 women entrepreneurs and women who want to start an entrepreneurial activity benefited from the training provided by these centers in 2022," he added.