needed for a business, they see government support as inaccessible and unsupportive for business, and most importantly, household and domestic responsibilities limit their participation in business.

**The major impediment to the emergence of women entrepreneurs is the cultural, gender-based traditions regarding the role of women in society.**<sup>12</sup> These include the burden of household and family responsibilities, general lack of respect for women entrepreneurs, and an unwelcoming environment for women entrepreneurs in maledominated sectors. While not only specific to women-owned businesses, SMEs in Myanmar face many challenges related to access and use of financial instruments. Lack of financial service sophistication, short loan tenors, and onerous collateral requirements, are all developmental challenges faced by firms in the country.<sup>13</sup> Moreover, research suggests that women entrepreneurs face specific barriers when dealing with bureaucracy, this is quite relevant in the context of Myanmar. These challenges may arise from lower educational attainment, literacy levels, and underrepresentation of women in senior positions.<sup>14</sup>

**To improve women’s participation in the labor force, especially their access to quality employment, progressive firms have adopted formal family-friendly policies aimed at reducing the gender gap.** When talking about HRM policies, the literature refers to maternity and paternity leave, subsidized childcare, paid sick and annual leave, housing, and food and transport subsidies. The adoption of such policies, especially maternity leave and childcare, is conducive to a higher participation of women in the workforce (Ferragina, 2017), and they are generally associated with positive employment outcomes for mothers (Misra, Budig and Boeckmann, 2010). The She Works report conducted across several different countries, including LICs, highlights how policies such as flexible workplace and leave, child and elderly care, and equal pay for equal work, are all important for the recruitment and retention of female talent.<sup>15</sup> Moreover, the report calls attention to practices such as complementing adequate parental leave and flexible working arrangements with proactive career management to help women (and men) staying/getting back on the career track. Overall, these practices create an enabling environment for women to be able to participate more in the private sector and to overcome the barriers they face. In the context of Myanmar, the adoption of HRM policies is mandated by the government in the Social Security Law (2012) and the Leave and Holidays Act (1951/2014).

# • **Business development**

**Strengthening SME capacities to improve their competitiveness in domestic, regional and global markets is crucial.** According to the OECD report (2004) on promoting SMEs for development, it is important to promote tools, such as value chain analysis, in order to enable entrepreneurs to understand what problems and challenges they need to address within and beyond their own borders. The report also stresses the importance of investments in physical

> 12 National Assessment of Women’s Entrepreneurship Development Framework Conditions – Myanmar, ILO and Sasakawa Peace Foundation, Draft Executive Summary.

> 13 Country report Myanmar, Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Assessment, Dutch Good Growth Fund, April 2019. 14 Ibid.

> 15 She Works, Recruitment and retention of female talent in the workplace, The IFC, 2016.

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