Description
The ACCESS! programme is a gender-focused, regional trade support programme aimed at improving the trade support services for African businesswomen in international trade, with a view to promoting their economic empowerment. Replacing the ACCESS! I Mentoring component, the ACCESS! II Business Counselling component aims to provide locally professional management and export support to women-owned SMEs enterprises with a view to have an export plan. This Business Counselling component is led by the Enterprise Competitiveness (EC) Section for the benefit of Office for Africa (OA), PACT II programme, and ACCESS! coordination. It will benefit ACCESS! Focal Point (AFP) institutions as well as ACCESS! participating women entrepreneurs in selected ACCESS! countries. This component will lead to an extension of the export support in the Market Access component in 2011-2012. As funds are limited, and since the necessary local certified resources are not available in all ACCESS! countries, only a few countries will benefit from this component within the ACCESS! programme. The other countries may benefit from it with additional funding within ACCESS! or from external sources.