Small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) represent 90% of all enterprises in Mongolia. That 39% of firms had female representatives in business ownership and 36% of SMEs employed women as a top manager.  Women are particularly active in the light manufacturing, agriculture, food processing and service sectors. According to the national and international research findings, women are regarded as reliable borrowers (e.g. “micro-financing”); and effective contributors to household incomes and the national economy at large. However, the research also shows that women face lot of difficulties while running business, which makes them discouraged and uninspired and it leads to the end of their businesses in some cases. Specifically the reasons: decreased number of stable source of finance, low opportunity of being involved in soft loan system, lack of management skill and knowledge of business running and duties at home are exerting pressure on women.

With pioneering support from the Korea International Cooperation agency (KOICA), the Asia Foundation (TAF) and the City of Ulaanbaatar, “The Women’s Business Center” was established to support women’s entrepreneurship between 2016 and 2018 (I phase). IRIM has conducted the end-line survey on this project, and shared the survey results during the project’s II phase in November 2018. 

According to the research finding, a main issue women facing is a survival of their business in the first three years. It is really essential for businesswomen to gain advanced level of knowledge about their market and consumer needs; create the tailored unique products and services in innovative way, to effectively manage the human resource; to access to reliable financial resources; and to develop financial accounting and reporting skills.

You can find out brief results of this research from the info-graphics below.