WOMEN ENTREPRENEURS PROFILING STUDY

Summary of the study

Intellectuals Center as a consulting firm, carried out the ‘Profiling of Hariyo Ban Program supported Women Entrepreneurs and Capacity Building Business Accelerator Worskhop’ in the Terai Area Landscape (TAL) and Chitwan Annapurna Area Landscape (CHAL) regions in 2020. The study conducted interviews with 103 women entrepreneurs supported by the Hariyo Ban program, field visits, and workshops in four different provinces of Nepal.

Objectives

• To create updated profile of 641 HBP supported women entrepreneurs and to track their current professional status in TAL and CHAL
• To study impact on biodiversity conservation, learning and sharing
• To measure its effectiveness in increasing income of women and their access to assets ownership, employment opportunity and saving and credit facilities
• To access its contribution in boosting self-esteem of women and transformation in power relation at the household level or within the society

Key Findings/Outputs

• Profile compilation of 641 Hariyo Ban program-supported women entrepreneurs.
• HBP-supported women entrepreneurs have shifted their source of livelihood from forest to alternative job and business options such as vegetable farming, coffee farming, eco-tourism, beautician, and so on.
• The number of employed women and self-employed women has increased from 5.83% to 8.74% and 19.42% to 64.08% respectively, while the number of unemployed women has decreased from 74.76% to 0.97%.
• There are multiple barriers to accessing, owning, and controlling assets by the women entrepreneurs in TAL & CHAL regions. Access to corporate financial institutions is found to be limited.
• The study concludes that women entrepreneurs training and support provided by HBP have resulted significant impact on the lives of participating women mainly in terms of income generation, boosting self-esteem, improving access to finance and increase in knowledge of biodiversity, ultimately contributing to the conservation of biodiversity and natural resource.

*** This study was conducted for WWF – Hariyo Ban Program.