RURAL WOMEN’S ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Entrepreneurship in rural areas is still very weak. The survey found that less than 20% of respondents declare to have their household incomes derived from off-farm self-employment.

Only 22.4 % of SMEs are concentrated in rural areas.

Overall, businesses led by women represent 28% of total and are located mostly in urban areas (87%), especially in Tirana (47.5%).

Women entrepreneurs lead small firms (95% of the enterprises led by women have less than 5 workers), focused on low value-added production, in highly informal sector such as retail, hotels and restaurants, and other service sectors. In rural areas, except for the agriculture sector, all the other sectors are underrepresented (less than 25%).

This is further proof of scarce economic diversification in rural areas as well as inadequate opportunities for off-farm business creation, particularly for women. Weak financial support, lack of knowledge on feasible business startups and lack of skilled labor force are the most important factors ranked by the respondents for such a unsupportive business environment.