Development of women entrepreneurship contributes to new employment opportunities

The high unemployment rate and unfavourable environment for entrepreneurship development are the key economic issues in BiH. Through its IPA funds, the European Union supports  economic growth and th...

The high unemployment rate and unfavourable environment for entrepreneurship development are the key economic issues in BiH. Through its IPA funds, the European Union supports  economic growth and through its project: “Inclusive Economic Growth and Employment Generation in Eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina – region Birač” it contributes to new employment opportunities.

The project is focused on capacity building of women in entrepreneurship. Sixty women entrepreneurs were trained and they drafted their own business plans. The best ideas received financial support.  Amongst them was Muška Halilović’s proposal, a returnee to Bajramovići village, Srebrenica municipality.

“I knew from the start what I wanted to do. My calling was sheepherding. But to see the real benefit and be able to feed my family, I could only envisage my land with hundreds of them,” said Muška.

Muška and her family remember the harsh post-war times when they were returnees and lived in a tent until their house was reconstructed. Then, as she remembers, she sold large quantities of plums from her land and used the money to buy the first ten sheep. However, such a small flock was not nearly enough to feed Muška’s large family.

“We had no welfare, no income whatsoever, and I was just thinking that I had to push forward and work on the land,” Muška says.

There was a public call for participation in the project and Muška applied with many other women and became a beneficiary. The Commission recognized Muška’s potential and need to develop a small agricultural business, and supported her business plan. They approved the donation for extending her barn. In spring 2015, she received construction material and started expanding the barn capacities.

“Without the assistance from the European Union, I would not have been able to build the barn on my own, not even for the next two years.”

She has increased her flock to fifty sheep and is planning to expand into cultivation of raspberries, concluded this courageous entrepreneur.

The training and advice also helped Katarina Petrović from Bjelava village in Bratunac municipality where she has been in dairy production since 2005. She started with three, but today has 45 cows producing 350 litres of milk every day.

“My business plan envisaged milk processing and I received much needed expert help during training. As for the cheese equipment, I got a pasteurizer, strainer and moulds to manufacture hard cheese, semi-hard and soft cheese, and caciocavallo (stretched-curd cheese),” says Katarina.

Besides training in preparing and managing a small enterprise and receiving cheese production equipment, Katarina was also advised by experts. By expanding the business in terms of processing of raw material into a product of higher market value, her worries of selling milk were allayed, while simultaneously creating conditions for further growth of a successful family business.

“I have a daughter who is just about to finish secondary school, and I plan to send her to study to become a Food Technologist so that we all could, as a family, produce cheese,”  said the entrepreneur.

Education and financial support to women entrepreneurs in Birač region helped create opportunities for growth of family businesses which in turn resulted in new employment opportunities and overall economic growth.