Activity completion summary (ACS): a new generation of women entrepreneurs in Pakistan

will provide both services to targeted clienteles and public goods services that will spillover to non-benficiaries in and outside of Pakistan. The T.A. will be executed in three phases: design, implementation, and evaluation. The proposed scope of work would provide the following services for selected participants of the pilot program : Links to finance, Mentors: Develop networks of mentors and coaches nationally that contribute their time to the development of women entrepreneurs. • Skills: Through custom and targeted training, help build relevant business and networking skills, including many of the "soft" skills needed to successfully grow a business. The rationale for developing and facilitating mentoring and networking services is the prominent role these play in the world’s most entrepreneurial ecosystems (i.e. Silicon Valley, Israel, etc.) and their short supply in Pakistan, as confirmed through stakeholder consultations. Additionally, highlighting role models of successful female entrepreneurs is key given evidence on the capacity of female business owners to spur a virtuous cycle of women in business. The rationale for building relevant business skills for women entrepreneurs is based partially on David McKenzie and Christopher Woodruff’s research on business training and entrepreneurship evaluations around the world. They found modest impacts of training on survivorship of existing firms, but strong evidence that training programs help prospective owners launch new businesses more quickly. However, most trainings are of questionable quality, often delivered in ways that don’t resonate with women entrepreneurs (such as theoretical power point presentations to passive audiences), and are often of such a general nature as to be marginally relevant to most participants, but actually impactful to a very few. Therefore, the emphasis on training will be customization, delivery, and relevance, and will be measured through both client satisfaction surveys and the impact analysis. Additionally, the pilot beneficiaries will be, on average, more educated and of higher baseline skill level than the subjects measured by McKenzie and Woodruff, which is expected to boost the impact of business training in conjunction with higher quality and more relevant substance. The activities covered under this project are the delivery of this program in Lahore and two secondary cities in Pakistan, as well as a rigorous impact evaluation of the earlier version of the program in Karachi (P145210). In the course of delivery, local partners will be engaged and supported to build their capacity to deliver programs to women business owners in Pakistan.