Zhypargul Zakirzhan kyzy lives in Batken region, her husband and she raise their daughter. After working in government institutions and in labour migration, the young woman decided to open business. Now she is actively dealing with opening a chicken farm, she bought 10 layer chickens in winter and makes her first profit from selling eggs. However, she understands that farm scaling can take much time without significant investments. She studied various loan facilities, but bank requirements and interest rates are beyond her strengths.

Another important moment is the unavailability of business education, lack of consultation centres. Zhypargul has perceived the value of such resources from her experience. Chicken are often vulnerable to viruses and bacteria and she could not find a specialist in Batken to give her a consultation. The beginning farmer has many questions about poultry feeding and care. Therefore, Zhypargul spoke of the need to open short-term training courses.

Unavailability of loans and education is just a small part of obstacles faced by female entrepreneurs. Family support, especially of husband and his relatives, gender stereotypes, development of free public infrastructure play a key role.

According to her, despite the fact that the national constitution ensures equal rights for all, in fact women and men have different opportunities. In terms of business, these are money, capital, innovation, education, technologies. Women have significant barriers in all of these parameters.

According to the state programme for women's entrepreneurship protection, only 29 per cent of real property are registered to women, and the rest 62 per cent are registered to other persons, and 9 per cent are registered to persons living outside of their registered address. Most of assets are registered to male family members. General restriction of their rights to the use of family assets leads to women being restricted in applying for loans.

In 2020, Kyrgyzstan had 17 thousand companies, including 96 per cent of small ventures; nearly 419 thousand sole proprietors carried out their activities. According to the Ministry of Economy, only 30 per cent of entrepreneurs are women.

Zhiidegul Alimbek kyzy of Dzhalal-Abad could overcome all barriers peculiar to the female entrepreneurship. Today her guest house is ready to welcome guests after a significant expansion. It all started with four rooms in their own house, and she could host nearly 200 guests in the first year. Then the coronavirus pandemic broke out, but the young entrepreneur and her family decided to make use of the opportunity and build an additional two-storey building.

Zhiidegul has always lead an active lifestyle: interesting work, frequent trips, meeting new people. The birth of two children and the prolonged maternity leave have led her to depressed mood. She started looking for opportunities to use quite a valuable resource in the region – Zhiidegul and her husband were fluent in English and German languages. Thus they had an idea to open a guest house where foreign tourists can communicate in their own languages.

"I am a senior daughter-in-law, we live together with the husband's parents. At first, they were against it and said that my children should be in the first place for me. I managed to persuade them and now they support us greatly. Parents readily welcome our guests, offer them hospitality peculiar to our nation," Zhiidegul said.

Business and work usually do not relieve women of their household chores. Many women do not wait for any help from the state and just ask for making state services more flexible for women.

"I often visit the tax office with a child in my arms. And I have to wait in a long queue, for hours, and sometimes I can even get back without getting the service I needed. They should create necessary conditions for us not to waste our time there," she said.

According to the National Statistical Committee of Kyrgyzstan, the employment rate of men was 75 per cent in 2020, and of women – 46 per cent. Women comprise 69 per cent among inactive population.

Women in their prime working age often quit their jobs due to the childbirth. According to the National Statistical Committee, in 2017 nearly 38 per cent of active women quit their jobs for family reasons.

Because of such obstacles, women have to choose the job they can combine with their household chores. Flexible schedule, closeness to the workplace are important for them. Therefore, women prevail in such kinds of activity as real estate operations (96 per cent), education, healthcare and social protection of population (80 per cent). Men prevail in such spheres as construction (99 per cent), mining operations, transportation and cargo storage (96 per cent each). Moreover, education and healthcare are among the least paid kinds of economic activity, while construction and mining operations are one of the highest paid jobs.

During the coronavirus pandemic, healthcare and education workers had to work overtime. Healthcare workers offered help in red zones, and teachers had to adapt their work to the Covid-19 pandemic. Thus, women turned to be at the forefront of the fight. Almost 4.2 thousand healthcare workers were infected with coronavirus, 89 died. Most of them did not receive compensations promised by the government, not to speak of the compensation of additional load of teachers.

The experts emphasise one more significant factor in the labour market, which increases the vulnerability of women. It is the informal economy. In 2018, according to the International Labour Organisation, informal economy rate was 52.5 per cent in Kyrgyzstan, which involved 54.2 per cent of men and 49.7 per cent of women.

In 2021, the Cabinet of Ministers adopted the state programme of support to women's entrepreneurship, which aimed at the resolution of all the above problems. It is a matter of time to what extent the document will be implemented. So far, international organisations and donors do a great job for economic empowerment of women and for development of women's entrepreneurship. Moreover, it was the civil society that promoted the state programme.

According to USAID, they work to create conditions for a full-fledged participation of women in the economy. It includes training and grant support of female entrepreneurs enabling them to expand their businesses.

"Currently, this support is being provided under our two largest projects – "Enterprise competitiveness" and "Agrotrade". Each of these projects focuses on development of women's entrepreneurship," the organisation said.

From 2020, USAID programmes in the Kyrgyz Republic have supported over 41 female entrepreneurs by grants and technical assistance. This assistance has helped over 5.6 thousand women to get jobs in sewing industry, tourism and agriculture. The organisation also supports conferences and forums to help women create networks to share with each other.

Aidana Alibaeva of Osh received a non-repayable grant to buy IT equipment for her educational centre as part of the USAID "Enterprise competitiveness" programme. Her entity, "I-Class", with the STEM approach, was opened in 2021 and comprises the elementary school and courses. Today, it covers 400 children. The young entrepreneur is planning to open a kindergarten and high school.

Aidana is not an exclusion, she also overcomes the same barriers: household chores, children, loan, bureaucracy. Although support from international organisations does not let her give up and encourage her to go on, it is impossible to address many issues without the system policy of the government.

"To reach these goals, we want to reduce administrative barriers, to collect data and to analyse. We suggest financial institutions to open separate loan, leasing facilities for women. Special regulatory basis for introduction of alternative forms of security will be developed. There are events to ensure access to business skills; and there will be mentorship programmes, consulting services," the deputy minister said.

Expert Ainura Sagynbaeva said that adoption of a state programme does not mean the resolution of issues. According to her, dozens of ambitious programmes in various spheres have remained dead letters in Kyrgyzstan for various reasons.

"We have taken part for two or more years, and made our contribution to writing of the programme. Ultimately, a plan that is more or less feasible has been developed. Hopefully, it will be implemented. We need to unite here – donors, civil society. The Ministry of Economy must take the lead and create the interagency working group," Sagynbaeva said.

According to her, even the United States, which is the number one economy, have a state programme to support women's entrepreneurship. Such programme is available in developed Nordic countries, whereas Central Asia, but Turkmenistan, have adopted relevant documents.

Economist, ex-minister of economy Eldar Abakirov said that conditions should be first created to protect all women's rights, including economic rights, because they are more vulnerable in all situations and crises.

"Economic rights of single mothers should be certainly protected in terms of property registration, state aid," Abakirov said.