The aim of the initiative was to support the economic and social empowerment of women entrepreneurs in rural areas, which already have launched their small businesses, but needed additional support. Besides the financial part, these women were trained and given support to improve the quality of goods and services offered, to network with other women entrepreneurs and to present their offer on the website and application selo.rs .
More importantly, this initiative nurtured their entrepreneurial spirit and encouraged them to come up with innovative ideas. They are now more open to accept new technologies and ways of working, for example to sell their products through social media.
"We do not plan to stop our activities”, said Bojana Glišić who is developing rural tourism in the village Struganik. “We will continue to work and improve other parts of our household.”
Such support has directly boosted the sales of the women who participated in the project. The results of the initiative were also recognized by nine partner local self-governments. As a consequence, they have decided to include support to rural women in their budget proposals for 2019.
Ana Nikodijević from the village Ovsište near Topola, one of the 52 women supported, stated that programs like this are important as they do not only empower the women participating in the project, but their families as a whole.
You may find more about these successful women entrepreneurs in this video
The project has been successfully finalized with a closing conference held at the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia on 23rd of November, 2018.
In her opening remarks, Ms. Sascha Müller, Head of the Governance Sector within the Swiss Cooperation Office, noted that women living in rural areas are one of the most vulnerable groups in Serbia. They are disadvantaged concerning ownership of land and productive assets, workload due to traditional care-taking roles, access to formal employment and social security.
She expressed hope that this initiative will serve as good practice for future initiatives on women’s entrepreneurship and related policy-making. “With an increased budget for the period 2018-2021, the Swiss Government will continue to support rural women and to improve gender equality in Serbia – because this means moving towards a society that provides equal opportunities to all and a socially and economically prosperous country”, Ms. Müller noted.
This initiative was implemented by the Regional Development Agency of Sumadija and Pomoravlje and supported by the Swiss Government with EUR 140’000, as part of its Program Rural and Regional Development Support in Serbia. The total amount of the support of this Program is EUR 3.3 million and will last until April 2019.
