CIPE celebrates Global Entrepreneurship Week, Highlights Programs that Empower Entrepreneurs in Over 50 Countries

Washington, DC — To commemorate Global Entrepreneurship Week, the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE) highlights successes in work done in over 50 countries around the world helping to empower entrepreneurs who create much needed jobs and drive policy reforms, John D. Sullivan, CIPE Executive Director, said today.

“This week is Global Entrepreneurship Week and at CIPE we are celebrating the impact entrepreneurs have in their communities through both growing businesses and creating jobs and through their role in advocacy and policymaking,” Sullivan said. “CIPE and its partners around the world have developed innovative programs that help entrepreneurs identify policy reforms that reduce barriers to doing business and advocate those reforms with governments.”

CIPE’s entrepreneurship programs focus on educating youth on entrepreneurship and civic leadership, empowering women to advocate policies that support women in business, facilitating policy reforms that improve the environment for entrepreneurship, and strengthening institutions that underpin the marketplace, such as property rights and the rule of law.

Here are a few examples of the work CIPE is doing around the world:

• In Peru, the Emprende Ahora program has developed the entrepreneurial and leadership skills of more than 900 university students from 24 regions, many of whom have gone on to start their own businesses and play a leadership role in their communities;
  Around 600 displaced Syrian youth in Turkey have received entrepreneurship and civic leadership training through a CIPE-supported program that is giving these youth the skills they need to develop businesses and contribute to rebuilding Syria when they return home;
• The Women’s Chamber of Industry and Commerce in Sri Lanka is partnering with a local bank for the Lend to Her program that will train women entrepreneurs on how to acquire services from the banking sector and facilitate loans for women who qualify;
  In Pakistan, a coalition formed by the South Punjab Women’s Chamber in Multan and the Peshawar Women’s Chamber advocated successfully for an increase in the commercial loan repayment period for artisans – many of whom are women – from 180 days to 360 days;
• And CIPE is working to enhance the delivery of entrepreneurship education in Bahrain by developing a cadre of trainers to implement an entrepreneurship curricula tailored to the Bahraini context. The trainers are incorporating the curricula into their existing entrepreneurship initiatives and training manuals for future generations of aspiring Bahraini entrepreneurs.

For more information on CIPE’s entrepreneurship programs during Global Entrepreneurship Week, visit www.cipe.org/blog.