Ukraine – Women’s Economic Empowerment Program

Providing Training to Better Strengthen Female Entrepreneurs

Working with Winrock International on the Women’s Economic Empowerment Program (WEE), ACDI/VOCA trained female entrepreneurs to better manage their businesses and increased the number of small and medium-sized businesses owned by women. The program also provided $100,000 in seed capital for a microcredit facility that provided loans to female entrepreneurs through credit unions located in Ivano-Frankivsk, Chernihiv, Mikolayev, Kharkiv and Donetsk.

The program's training curriculum was based on ACDI/VOCA’s business development experience in Poland and Ukraine and targeted 50 trainers who will, in turn, trained over 800 women on fundamental and advanced business topics over a three-year period. ACDI/VOCA also sent 35 trainers to Poland for study tours.