The Regional Cooperation Council (RCC) Secretariat and Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) signed today in Sarajevo a 2.2 million Euros worth agreement aiming to boost women entrepreneurship in South East Europe (SEE) through combined public and private sector effort.

The project “Women entrepreneurship – a job creation engine for South East Europe”, will promote best policy practices in women entrepreneurship and capacity building support to women entrepreneurs’ associations in SEE.

Supervised and coordinated by the RCC, the project will be implemented by two regional organizations: the South East Europe Center for Entrepreneurial Learning (SEECEL) and the Gender Task Force (GTF). The inception phase of the project starts immediately, but its full-fledged implementation will take place over the course of 3 years, 2012-2014.

The project clearly reflects RCC’s priorities in the area of economic and social development as specified in the RCC Strategy and Work Programme 2011-2013: promotion of a single investment space through the SEE Investment Committee, identifying ways to improve access to finance, mainstreaming employment and social agenda into economic reform deliberations.