Building a Supportive Ecosystem for Women-led Businesses in the Pacific: A Collaborative Effort by BLP’s partners BAF and CEFI
While women-led businesses in the Pacific region are critical to economic growth and development, they face unique challenges, including limited access to finance, business training, and networking opportunities. Despite these challenges, women-led businesses have shown remarkable resilience and significantly contributed to their communities and the broader economy.
Regional collaboration can be crucial in providing women entrepreneurs access to new and broader perspectives, resources and expertise. As a regional initiative, Business Link Pacific is well placed to identify and encourage cross-country collaborations to support business in many areas. An example of such an opportunity is the current collaboration between its in-country partners, Business Assistance Fiji (BAF) and the Centre for Excellence in Financial Inclusion (CEFI), from Fiji and Papua New Guinea respectively.
Both partners focus on supporting micro and small women-led businesses by creating a supportive ecosystem that enables them to access finance and capital, improve their business skills, network and access business advisory services.
Through this collaboration, 50 women entrepreneurs from Fiji were recently trained on various topics, including digital financial literacy, e-commerce, business planning and debt management, providing them with the tools they need to make informed decisions and drive business growth.
BAF General Manager, Mr Ramesh Chand, thanked CEFI for conducting this training and thanked the entrepreneurs for attending the three-day training session. “Women in business have been very successful; they know how to do business. They are good savers, and they adhere to the advice that is given by business advisors or business institutions such as Business Assistance Fiji,” said Mr Chand.
Participants in the training led by BAF and CEFI were appreciative of the support provided. They look forward to applying what they learned to grow their businesses or make them profitable again.
Ms Ekari Ira runs a floral business in Wainadoi Navua; she was impressed with her new skills and plans to share her learning with other women entrepreneurs in her village.
From Lautoka, Ms. Anaseini Leweavai said she learned the importance of keeping a financial report for her business.
In addition to learning new business skills, participants were thrilled to share the same room with other like-minded women, many of whom shared the same problems and resiliency.
Business Link Pacific will continue to support women entrepreneurs through access to business advisory and financial services. To connect with BLP’s in-country partners in Fiji and PNG, email Fiji@businesslinkpacific and PNG@businesslinkpacific.