The Papua New Guinea (PNG) 2017 Project involved two stages of training. The first stage was a ten-day training program from 14th to 25th August 2017, “Start Your Business – Micro Enterprise (SYB ME)” in East Boroko, NCD, with the objectives of imparting basic business management and entrepreneurial skills/knowledge and learning to prepare business plans to start/ improve their small business ventures. Two trainers from the SME Corporation, an agency under the PNG Ministry of Commerce, provided training to 20 members of BPW of PNG and NCW of PNG.

At the end of the first stage, they selected one participant from each organization to attend the 2nd stage of training, which encompassed building capacity skills of trainers,” SMESIYB/ILO Trainer of Trainers’ Training” from 4th – 25th September 2017. The goal of this stage was to increase the total number of trainers in PNG so that the trainers can train more people throughout PNG. After completion of their training, these two members planned to create course materials and conduct training to interested members throughout the 22 provinces.

The overall objectives of this program were to build the capacity skills of micro-entrepreneurs so that they can grow their businesses into small and medium sized enterprises, to ensure that women have the opportunity to participate in the training, to promote the equal opportunity of women and girls to participate and contribute to the economy, and to strengthen the capacity of network partners including civil society and educational institutions for business development training.