In Asia and the Pacific, entrepreneurship is one of the main pathways for women’s economic empowerment and their push towards equality, which may - in turn - create ‘multiplier effects’ on family well-being, poverty reduction and sustainable economic growth. Thus, creating an enabling entrepreneurial ecosystem for women, can yield expansive socio-economic gains from households to communities and economies.
ESCAP’s regional programme ‘Catalyzing Women’s Entrepreneurship: creating a gender-responsive entrepreneurial ecosystem’ (CWE Programme), supported by Government of Canada, aims to advance women entrepreneurship and market participation in the Asia-Pacific region to improve livelihoods, reduce poverty and accelerate economic growth.
Under the CWE Programme, ESCAP, and the Agency for Enterprise Development, Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI) in Viet Nam jointly conducted an assessment of the Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) Law and its implementation effectiveness for women entrepreneurs in Viet Nam.
The assessment evaluates the impact of various support measures and policy provisions under the SME law, in terms of gaps and opportunities, particularly for women-owned enterprises. Within the SME Law, a number of decrees outline clauses that support SMEs, specifically women-owned SMEs. As a result of the assessment, a new Decree 80/2021/ND-CP replaced Decree 39/2018./ND-CP of the SME Law, incorporating several recommendations from the assessment to strengthen the overall enabling environment for women-owned SMEs. The new decree, which came into effect on 15 October 2021, has several important elements that have been adjusted and supplemented to provide the legal basis to significantly improve the previous regulatory limitations that women entrepreneurs and women-owned SMEs faced.
Objectives of the workshop:
While the principle of prioritizing women-owned SMEs is stipulated in the SME Law, the assessment revealed several gaps in guidance and implementation of the stipulated articles. Hence, the new Decree 80 has included several support measures to further the implementation of provisions related to women-led MSMEs in Viet Nam. The workshop will share the key findings of the assessment undertaken and, more importantly, the specifics of Decree 80 that relate to women-led MSMEs in Viet Nam. The workshop will also facilitate dialogue on challenges faced by different stakeholders in implementing these provisions that will inform the drafting of the implementation circular by the MPI.
The target audience for this event will be government ministries in charge of formulating and implementing SME support laws and other business development policies at the national and provincial level; local government agencies in charge of disseminating and implementing policies; business support organizations, including those focusing on women owned SMEs, including the Vietnam Women's Union, Women's Union of provinces, Vietnam Association For Women Entrepreneurs, Association For Women Entrepreneurs of provinces; women-owned SMEs; M&E experts working on entrepreneurship development; and representatives from startup incubators and accelerators in Viet Nam.
Link to The SME Law and Its Impact on Women Entrepreneurs in Viet Nam