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Thunderbird School of Global Management is continuing its commitment to the training of women entrepreneurs in developing countries with the announcement today of the school’s participation in “Strengthening Women Entrepreneurship in Peru.”
The global partnership, which will help more than 100,000 women launch and grow their small or micro enterprises in their homeland, is being funded by more than $7 million in grants from the Multilateral Investment Fund of the Inter-American Development Bank; Peru’s leading microfinance institution Mibanco S.A.; the Australian government; and Goldman Sachs Group.
The project, which seeks to address the lack of educational training tailored to the needs of women entrepreneurs, will have two tracks: one for women micro entrepreneurs and another for women small business owners. The program will be part of Thunderbird’s philanthropic arm, Thunderbird for Good, which specializes in customized business training for women entrepreneurs in developing countries.
MiBanco will work with Thunderbird to develop SALTA (Spanish for jump), a large-scale training program for micro entrepreneurs in all regions of the country. The seminars will focus on improving business processes and product lines as well as provide financial and human resource management training. The project will reach out to the clients of all microfinance institutions in Peru, and other Latin American micro lenders will be encouraged to use the resulting training program, which will be available for public use.
In addition, Thunderbird will collaborate with a Peruvian university to develop a certificate program for women small business owners. This part of the project is a partnership with the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Women initiative, a global effort to provide underserved women around the world with high-quality business and management education. The program in Peru builds on Thunderbird’s existing Goldman Sachs 10,000 Women program in Afghanistan as well as the school’s highly successful Project Artemis Afghanistan and SEEDS (Supporting Entrepreneurs and Enterprise Development Seminar) program for women entrepreneurs in Jordan, which launches next month.
The Multilateral Investment Fund, an autonomous fund administered by the IDB, has been a major supporter of microfinance innovation in Latin America and the Caribbean since 1993. The IDB is the leading source of long-term financing for economic and social development in this region.
“Investing in the education and economic empowerment of women in developing countries not only improves the lives of the women themselves, but enriches the entire community and contributes to the sustainable prosperity of those countries as a whole,” says Dr. Angel Cabrera, president of Thunderbird. “Our goal is to change lives and create lasting benefit. This truly global partnership, allows us to unite with leading financial institutions who share this goal and are deeply committed to realizing our vision of a better world through education and opportunity.”
Half of Peru’s GDP is generated by small and microenterprises, and women head more than 40 percent of these companies. Peru is one of only two countries in the world in which women are more likely to start a business than men.
“Investing in these women makes good business sense for the Peruvian economy and for the microfinance industry,” said MIF General Manager Julie T. Katzman. “Building women’s business skills will lead to the improvement of millions of livelihoods, create much needed jobs and raise the living conditions of many low-income households in the country.”
July 13th, 2010 at 10:47 am
“Half of Peru’s GDP is generated by small and microenterprises, and women head more than 40 percent of these companies. Peru is one of only two countries in the world in which women are more likely to start a business than men.”
I’m interested in doing research regarding microfinancing for women entrepreneurs in Peru and I would love to know where these facts came from. Could you tell me the source?