Design Study for Youth and Female Entrepreneurship Support Activity in Tunisia

To overcome the gap in programming focused on women and youth entrepreneurs and to provide an integrated framework for the promotion of women's and youth entrepreneurship, the GoT's Ministry of Development, Investment, and International Cooperation (MDICI) and Ministry of Industry and SMEs have proposed an activity under the MCC compact's Business Climate Improvement Project to support women and youth entrepreneurs, particularly in interior and rural regions.
MCC and the GoT therefore require specialized project design services to determine the exact nature, content, geographic coverage, activities, implementation modalities, and opportunities for local partnerships of the future Female and Youth Entrepreneurship Support Activity (hereafter, "the Activity") to be included in the compact as part of the Business Climate Improvement Project.
The principal outcome of the design study should be a set of proposed sub-activities to achieve the broader goals of the Business Climate Improvement Project and the specific gender and social inclusion goals expressed above and described in greater detail below.

The Activity's objectives are:
• Address critical constraints faced by youth and women entrepreneurs in the compact's target sectors in growing their businesses, and support these businesses in benefiting from the reforms and activities implemented under the Business Climate Improvement Project by
o Reinforcing the abilities of women and youth to create and consolidate their business ideas (through training, access to finance, marketing, management, business plan coaching, and mentoring);
o Encouraging women's empowerment and reinforcing their self-confidence in entrepreneurship and leadership;
o Developing preferential tools for youth and women business owners (e.g., incentives, new technologies, market studies); and
o Designing entrepreneurship initiatives for women and NEET youth and promoting business formalization and business growth.
• Identify and build into the activity design opportunities to modify law and regulations in Tunisia that have gender-differentiated or gender-biased impacts on women's capacity and opportunity to engage in employment or entrepreneurial activity. This will be largely based upon the initial evidence and information on policy and regulatory constraints collected by MCC to date.

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