Farzona suggested another formulation. In a month, her boss brought her the main ingredient, agar-agar, and she started the work. In the beginning, there was no commercial interest, but a desire to create something unique to help take the fishing industry to the new level.

"Our fish are not importable because of their feed. We can hardly provide our domestic market, and my feed can change the situation," Makhmudova said.

The formulation was brought to perfection, and the time came for first tests and first big fears.

"Most of all, I feared that all fish will die. One trout costs 120 somoni (10 dollars), and there is a pool full of them!" the girl said.

But everything went well. The formulation was natural and useful. Soon, businessmen took interest in the feed. She was offered the premises where she would prepare the feed, and businessmen would feed their fish with it and sell it to others.

To protect her invention, Farzona decided to patent her formulation. Her idea was finally turned into business with the assistance of Tajik Start-up Challenge implemented by GIZ TRIGGER II "Start-up promotion" project. Now the girl is patenting her invention and soon is planning to release the product to the market.

In a short term, she has managed to overcome a few barriers: fear, not understanding how to run business, fundraising, gender discrimination. However, according to Farzona, everything is still ahead.

On April 21, 2022, active female entrepreneurs from Sughd and Khatlon regions, Kabadian district, and Dushanbe identified the following problems at the round table dedicated to barriers in women's entrepreneurship:

The key financial problem of female entrepreneurship is the lack of assets. Women do not have access to business and real property, all estate goes to men. Therefore, access to loans is restricted: no assets, nothing to pledge and offer to the bank. There is also a problem of financial ignorance, distrust, not understanding of banking products and unavailability of most services in rural areas.

But the situation with loans started to change in 2020. The pandemic had a positive impact on development of banking services and their availability to women. Banks shifted to online mode, electronic wallets, QR codes emerged, it became easier to get a microloan or pay for a service. The growth of lending is well shown on the chart.

Since 2020, women received more loans: simplified system and availability of banks helped women's entrepreneurship to overcome the pandemic and its consequences.

By providing the grace period to women, banks noticed that women were responsible in terms of finances and payments: women tried to pay off their loan as soon as possible. To attract more women, banks have introduced an incentive scheme for their employees for serving more female customers for a certain period. This is the practice of Arvand Bank, IBT (International Bank of Tajikistan), and micro deposit organisation Khumo.

The lending trend is positive, but the situation with deposits is still bad.

Nearly 5 million accounts were registered in 2021. Among them, 44 per cent belonged to women. It is quite a gender equality in terms of quantity. The gap is in the amount: out of 10,159 billion somoni (899,027 million dollars), only 21 per cent or 2,336 billion somoni (206,726 million dollars) fall on women.

The proportion of women's business in Tajikistan is low – below 30 per cent. This is the lowest indicator among Central Asian states.

During the pandemic, female entrepreneurs turned to be the most vulnerable. As the majority of them were involved in the service sector, they lost many things.

Female entrepreneur of Khatlon region Khusnia Shoinova before the pandemic took a 70,000 somoni loan (5,630 dollars) from a bank to invest into the company and pledged her house as security. Restrictions because of the coronavirus did not let her sell the goods: children did not attend school, people had no money.

Her miseries continued – first her brother, and then her husband died. Bank officers came to seize the house in two months. Khusnia sold everything she had not to remain outside with her child. In total, she had to pay 70,000 somoni in addition to the principal amount to repay the debt. The entrepreneur declared bankrupt this year.

The year of 2020 became the year of failures for some, and the year of opportunities for others.

Dushanbe-based entrepreneur Shakhlo Zairova was left with her child without money. Her husband got stuck in Russia and stopped remitting money to her. In this situation, the woman had nothing but to start earning by herself. She found a way out on the Instagram. Shakhlo opened an account and started to post her pickles and home canned goods. She was creating a database in the first few months, and then her clients started to recommend her.

Due to her skill, and, according to the woman, new technologies, she managed to survive in the hard times. Now Shakhlo is planning to open her small-scale business.

According to experts, many people have incurred losses during the pandemic. But availability of many financial services and the internet, women could not only stay afloat, but also build their capacity.

Gender equality in Tajikistan has been reached only in terms of demography. Other spheres have a significant imbalance. According to the statistics agency, only 40.5 per cent of able-bodied women are employed. Among men, this indicator is equal to 59.5 per cent.

Inequality is obvious in various spheres of economic activity. The spheres with the majority of women are public health, education, as well as waste recycling. Men usually do not choose these spheres because of low wages.

Wage inequality follows from it. According to the Statistics Agency of Tajikistan, the average monthly nominal accrued wages of men and women in 2019 were 1623.44 somoni (130.5 dollars) for men and 1039.79 somoni (83.5 dollars) for women. The gap is 36 per cent. It means that women earn 64 cents for every dollar earned by men.

Lola Salimova, national gender expert, consultant to EBRD, emphasised the key reason for the gender gap, i.e. education. According to the Statistics Agency, in 2019-2020 academic year, the proportion of girls studying in higher educational institutions was 37.7 per cent.

Unpaid housework is another obstacle for women in Tajikistan. Housework, childcare, care of elderly or sick relatives are traditionally considered to be the women's burden.

If we recount this work in hours, we'll have that every day women spend nearly 7 hours on housework, and men spend nearly 5 hours. These are the highest rates in the region. At that, women spend 70 per cent of their time on care of the elderly or sick relatives.

Women's support by the state started in 1998 when the President of the republic, Emomali Rakhmon, adopted the National Action Plan of Tajikistan to improve the status and role of women for 1998-2005. One of the key purposes was to build up the reserves of managing staff based on gender. The document became invalid long ago but it initiated development of gender equality in the labour market.

The next significant document for women was the president's decree dated December 3, 1999 "On enhancement of the role of women in the society." It helped expand the representation of women in senior positions in state bodies.

The state programme "Main directions of the state policy to ensure equal rights and opportunities among men and women in Tajikistan for 2001-2010" was adopted in 2001. The law "On state guarantees of equality of men and women and equal opportunities in their implementation" was adopted in 2005, the state programme "Training, selection and placement of executive staff among women and girls for 2007-2016" was adopted in 2007.

The number of women in the national parliament has increased during this time. In 1995, there were only 3 per cent of female deputies, and in 2020 – 29 per cent. Today it is the highest figure among Central Asian states.

There are few women in the state apparatus: vice prime minister of the government Matlubakhon Sattoriyon, minister of labour, migration and employment Shirin Amonzoda, minister of culture Zulfia Davlatzoda, chief of the presidential administration Ozoda Rakhmon, chair of the Committee for Women's and Family Affairs Khilolbi Kurbonzoda, director of the Statistics Agency of the President of Tajikistan Gulnora Kendzha.

Among 19,210 public servants, there were 4,485 women, or 23 per cent, as of January 1, 2021.

According to Lola Salimova, this situation is seen in the entire labour market. The state has long been prepared and has made a significant contribution to women's support, but it is rather a matter of the mechanism and officials who fail to perform most of their duties at their level.

Since last year, the government has introduced reduction of gender inequality as the cross-cutting topic into the National Development Strategy until 2030, including the mid-term development programme. Thus, all new programmes are adopted based on gender approach.

For this purpose, a special Working Group in support of female entrepreneurs, young people and persons with disabilities has been created at the State Committee for Investments and Government Property Management of the Government of Tajikistan. This group consists of active representatives of civil society, private sector, including business associations.

Currently, the group is actively working to legally adopt the term "women's entrepreneurship", and to develop the women's entrepreneurship development programme in Tajikistan.

Nasibakhon Aminova, director of the National Association of Small and Mid-sized Enterprises of Tajikistan, emphasises the importance of the group.

Given the prevalence of rural people, the state has been paying special attention to agriculture in recent years. Now women have equal rights to possess land plots, and the land and all property will be divided fifty-fifty upon divorce, which never happened before. It opens new opportunities to women.

Currently, 67 projects are being implemented to ensure gender equality jointly with financial institutions in the amount of 2.5 billion dollars. Most of them support agriculture. "Commercialisation of agriculture" at the Ministry of Finance – 25 billion dollars, "Access to green finance" – 10 million dollars, "Forming sustainability to climate change in Pyandj river basin" – 2.8 million dollars.

The main requirement of these projects is to attract at least 30 per cent of female beneficiaries.

From 2016 until now, the "Access to green finance" project has provided 8.8 million dollars to beneficiaries, including 41 per cent of women, and the "Forming sustainability to climate change in Pyandj river basin" project has provided 2.1 million dollars to beneficiaries, including 23 per cent of women.

Currently, the government promotes women's activities. The State Programme for Promotion of Employment of People for 2018-2019 granted concessional loans to 1,659 women and girls in the amount of 428.45 thousand dollars in 9 months of 2018. Later, they were involved in entrepreneurship. Presidential grants in the amount of 800 to 3.2 thousand dollars are allocated for women's business development.

The project "Gender-focused reforms of the investment climate" and the programme "Women in business", which was allocated over 10 million euros for support of women's entrepreneurship, were launched with the EBRD support.

There is a financial literacy programme supported by the UNDP available for women from regions. Participants, upon completion of trainings, will have an opportunity to win equipment in the amount of 11,000 somoni (884 dollars) for their businesses.

There is a public organisation "Zamonat" available to those who want to develop their business independently and to take out a loan, yet they have no guarantors. It is ready to be a guarantor to the bank and contribute the first instalment of 30 per cent of total amount, while the service will cost only 2 per cent of all money allocated.

The country fails to distribute its resources in a rational way, and receives less important resources by failing to involve women in the economy, according to experts. The low rate of women's involvement is equal to the low efficiency and minor economic growth.