October 29, 2021. "Mentorship Project for Women Entrepreneurs and Youth in Uzbekistan" is a program aimed at increasing the capacity of women entrepreneurs to become mentors. Trained mentors will support aspiring women and youth entrepreneurs with setting up and growing their businesses in rural areas through mentoring. As part of this program the first training seminars on "Mentoring and its role in entrepreneurship" were held in Surkhandarya and Kashkadarya regions on 27 and 29 October 2021 within a joint project of the Ministry of Investment and Foreign Trade of Uzbekistan and United Nations Development Programme "Aid for Trade in Uzbekistan".

Nearly 80 women-entrepreneurs and youth participated in these seminars, learning about the role of mentoring in entrepreneurship, methods of coaching, and ways to develop a personalized roadmap for implementing projects.

"This program is not a one-time event, it is a series of trainings and workshops in which the mentee, with the help of a mentor teacher, achieves clear and realistic results. It provides long-term assistance to rural women to expand their business, production and sales," reminds Dilshodbek Otaboev, business trainer and team leader.

Through the mentoring program, participants are expected to create new jobs in priority sectors and produce export-oriented niche products in potentially green sectors that have high added value and target high quality markets.

"During the seminar, I learned how to interact with mentees being a mentor, how to transfer skills and experiences to my future mentees who want to start their entrepreneurial businesses that will allow us to develop an effective plan for business development," said Rajabova Feruza, a women-entrepreneur and participant of the seminar.

The program will be implemented in four phases:

• Phase 1 - Orientation workshops and identification of teachers and mentors working on the program (October 2021).
• Phase 2 - Training of trainers, teachers and mentors working on the program (November 2021)
• Phase 3 – Mentor-mentee collaboration training and coaching (November - December 2021)
• Phase 4 - Support for the implementation of the business ideas of mentor-learners working on the program (February-March 2022).

The ‘Aid for Trade in Uzbekistan’ project is funded by the Government of the Russian Federation and implemented by the United Nations Development Programme in partnership with the Ministry of Investments and Foreign Trade of Uzbekistan. It is aimed to support Uzbekistan’s WTO accession process, developing trade, building productive and export capacities for niche products in employment-rich and potentially green sectors to contribute to more economically, socially and environmentally sustainable growth patterns.