Undeterred by COVID-19, more than 5,000 women Acquire Entrepreneurial Skills from UN Women and Sunlight Initiative

For immediate release

A WeLearn participant in Yogyakarta received one-on-one mentoring session with her trainer in February 2020. Photo credit: UN Women/Ariyanto Nugroho.

Jakarta, 16 July 2020 – More than 5,000 women across Indonesia have increased entrepreneurial skills from series of learnings through WeLearn, a digital platform. WeLearn platform is an initiative by UN Women with the support from Sunlight, a brand of PT Unilever Indonesia Tbk, that aims to improve equal learning opportunities to empower women who want to start or grow their business. The WeLearn initiative equipped women entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs with business and digital skills necessary to adapt to changing world of work and market development, including in this current COVID-19 crisis.

This crisis has hit Indonesia’s smaller businesses especially hard. Social distancing edicts in cities have forced owners to close shops and they have faced sharp decline in sales. However, this crisis also created a new opportunity and demand for online training which resulted in growing numbers of women registering in WeLearn training particularly in the last few months and this continues to grow. 

“During this pandemic, my sales were declining, but I use my time to join learning sessions and virtual gathering from business networks that I know from WeLearn. WeLearn did not only equipped me with necessary skills on entrepreneurship, but through its sessions, I met a network of women entrepreneurs and potential investors for my business,” said Vidi A. Damayanti, WeLearn participant from Jakarta and the owner of Mamaibu Chicken Wings.

In Indonesia, 64.5 per cent of registered Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) is managed by women^[1]. However, compared to business initiated by men, women-led MSMEs tend to be concentrated in the low productivity, low value sectors, especially in the trade and services sector^[2]. In practice, women entrepreneurs often face barriers in developing their businesses, including burden of unpaid care and domestic work, fewer opportunities to join business networks and in accessing skills development.

“Investing in women’s economic empowerment and skills development is an effective means to drive progress on gender equality and inclusive economic growth - such smart and long-term investments make a big difference especially during times of crisis when women’s ingenuity and resilience helps to turn some of the adversity into opportunities for recovery and building back better,” said Jamshed Kazi, UN Women Country Representative and Liaison to ASEAN. “We are pleased to see that through WeLearn Initiative, and particularly during the pandemic, we have been able to empower more women than expected by equipping them with the knowledge and skills needed to adapt to the existing and future challenges in order to transform their lives, families, and communities.” 

Veronica Utami, Director of Home Care of PT Unilever Indonesia Tbk said, “Unilever Indonesia has been accompanying the Indonesian society for 86 years. Throughout the years, we remained committed to bring positive changes for the society and help the government moving the economy through various efforts, including through empowering MSMEs as the backbone of the nation’s economy, particularly the women-led MSMEs. Our collaboration with UN Women in shaping WeLearn is in line with Sunlight’s brand purpose to unleash the untapped potential of women. By 2022, we hope to help 5 million Indonesian women discover their limitless potential and achieve their entrepreneurial dreams. We believe, amid this pandemic situation, opportunities for women to learn should never be closed.”  

Since October 2019, WeLearn facilitates various learning sessions for women micro-entrepreneurs, including self-paced online learning course through WeLearn website, tutored online training sessions via Whatsapp and Zoom, and in-person offline training and mentoring sessions. Through these sessions, women entrepreneurs were trained to better manage their businesses, get greater economic benefit from their activities, and to learn from one another. 

Based on the Business Check Up survey filled in by a cohort of 50 participants before and after the project, WeLearn has proven to contribute positively to improve their entrepreneurship skills:

• 98 per cent of participants have mastered basic financial management skills (i.e. own a separate business bank account, able to generate simple financial report), compared to 35 per cent before the project
• 63 per cent of participants have improved their operational management (i.e. develop standard of operational procedure (SOP), set a standard quality for raw materials, compared to 24% before the project
• 88 per cent of participants have proceed to get legal business permits and certifications for their businesses
• 99 per cent of participants have implemented marketing strategies, including devising digital marketing strategies

In addition, WeLearn managed to support women in becoming more confident, knowledgeable, and skilful in achieving their business goals, as evident from the online pre and post-test survey filled by the participants.

The key results of WeLearn project were shared during the virtual discussion on “Women Economic Empowerment: Realizing Equal Access and Opportunities for Women Entrepreneurs” held today. During the same occasion, UN Women also announced the graduation of 50 women entrepreneur finalists from three cities (Greater Jakarta, Malang, Jogjakarta) who have completed four months of intensive training under the project. 

In the upcoming months, WeLearn plans to expand its online learning materials on different topics related to entrepreneurship, as well as to connect more women micro-entrepreneurs to financial institutions.

[1] National Bureau of of Statistics, 2018.

[2] World Bank, 2016