Bilasuvar, 8 September 2021: Deputy Chairperson of the State Committee for Family, Women and Children Affairs Sadagat Gahramanova, the Ambassador of the Kingdom of the Netherlands Pauline Eizema, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Resident Representative Alessandro Fracassetti, and Head of Executive Authorities Faig Gurbatov visited the Women Resource Center in Bilasuvar and small businesses opened over the past year by rural women entrepreneurs.

As part of the project ‘Support to women-led community-based initiatives’ funded by the Kingdom of the Netherlands and implemented by UNDP and the State Committee for Family, Women and Children Affairs, 96 rural women from Bilasuvar successfully completed trainings in resume writing and presentation skills, NGO management, computer skills, marketing, branding and sales since the project started in November 2020.

Upon completing these trainings, 11 of them developed business plans and received in-kind support to start their own small businesses.

The project also supported the municipalities of Bilasuvar to conduct labor market assessments to help develop new measures to advance women employability.

Furthermore, the project supported the two municipalities in Bilasuvar to establish WASH Committees and Clubs to help improve water, sanitation, and hygiene conditions and 16 awareness sessions were carried out by experts for parents, students and community members in the times of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Since they were first established in 2011 by the State Committee for Family, Women and Children Affairs and UNDP, with the support of generous international donors, the nine Women Resource Centers across Azerbaijan have provided a safe space for women to share ideas on improving their livelihoods through economic empowerment. To date, free training courses have been offered to over 6,200 women in human and economic rights, and skills such as business development, accounting, financial literacy, and computer science. 

Media contact:

For media inquiries, please contact Dilara Umudova, Communications Officer for UNDP in Azerbaijan at dilara.umudova@undp.org.

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