Employment promotion in Myanmar

Entrepreneurship Development and Small & Medium Enterprise (SME) support

Background


A Kayan woman weaving in Bagan, Myanmar
Since 2014, several ILO projects have been implemented to support the development of the private sector and SME growth for employment creation. These projects have successfully promoted the provision of business management training in Myanmar through the Start and Improve Your Business (SIYB) programme.

The SIYB has now established itself as one of the leading business management training products in Myanmar with a total of 1000+ trainers (51% women), having trained more than 16,200+ entrepreneurs (55% women) and helped create 1234 new businesses and 7387 jobs. To achieve these results, the project developed partnerships with the key actors in the SME development sphere, such as the SME Development Department under the Ministry of Industry; GIZ, which is offering complementary business management training and major (I)NGOs and micro-finance institutions engaged in SME promotion.

Follow-up support to expand and promote decent work in SMEs and assist in improving their productivity and working conditions is underway with funding from Norway and Switzerland.

Objectives

  • Entrepreneurship training (SIYB) is available to MSMEs, policy support to MSMEs is improved, and the capacity of an SIYB platform is developed
  • Implementation partners have embedded SCORE Training in their national programs and national policies are influenced
  • Lead buyers develop suppliers through SCORE Training
  • Complementary sector interventions have addressed constraints in target value chains
  • Monitoring, evaluation, learning systems and communication implemented

Outputs

  • Support the SIYB platform for sustainable financing, development of new training materials and quality control of training delivery
  • Develop training materials for women and young entrepreneurs
  • Policy engagement for ensuring that SME development is in national employment creation strategies
  • Adaptation and delivery of SCORE programme 5 – Value chain development for fishery, tourism and other sectors with employment and growth potential

Contact Person: Mr. Michel Jamar, Chief Technical Adviser