THREE hundred Jamaican women business owners have completed a three-year training programme aimed at strengthening and promoting entrepreneurship among females in Jamaica.

The programme was organised by the Women Business Owners (Ja) Limited (WBO), with financial support from the Inter American Development Bank (IDB).

Speaking at a closing ceremony held recently at the WBO office, IDB country representative in Jamaica, Therese Turner Jones pointed to the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Women’s Entrepreneurial Venture Scope Study 2013, which ranked Jamaica last among 20 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, based on the principal factors influencing the environment for women entrepreneurs to start and grow businesses.

Jones noted that the Scope Index looked at such areas as business-operating risks including economics, corruption and security; the entrepreneurial business environment as it relates to support for SMEs, regulatory issues and costs related to starting a new business; access to financing for women; affordability of education for women; non-traditional training for women in such areas as computer science and engineering and social services, including support for families such as health care, paternity and maternity leave and day care.

The study showed that most entrepreneurs in the Caribbean region were trapped in the micro-enterprise sector, unable to access larger business loans to grow their businesses and to expand beyond the SME level, she said.

Jones added that the Women’s Entrepreneurial Venture Scope 2013 identified some of the challenges affecting Jamaican women-owned SMEs as being repeatedly denied access to financing, which is a major constraint to start or grow women’s businesses, especially because traditional lending models place women at a disadvantage.

The ceremony also featured testimonies from participant Cathy Radlein, who spoke of the benefits of the programme and the positive impact on the way she now does business, as well as one of the trainers, Ann Marie Rodriquez.

Also participating in the evening’s programme were: Lorna Green, Founder/Past President, WBO; Andrea Cowan, President, WBO, as well as WBO Board members: Shirley Carby, Dena Davis, Rita Humphries-Lewin, Dr Blossom O’Meally Nelson, Nadine Boothe Marjorie Allen and Sandra Samuels.