EU and UNDP start Master Training Programme to develop social entrepreneurship in Azerbaijan

The European Union (EU) and UNDP started a two-week intensive ToT (training of trainers) programme to foster the development of social entrepreneurship in Azerbaijan.

The programme is organised as part of the EU-funded project on civil society organisations and aims to prepare 7 national experts as future trainers who will be passing the gained knowledge and skills to 40 civil society organisations, social entrepreneurs and youth groups interested in shifting their operations towards the social enterprise model.  

The master trainers have the opportunity to enhance their core capacity in social entrepreneurship while having in-class support from international and local experts.
The programme covers 9 modules and helps the participants easily navigate among various social business definitions and terms, assess the needs and capacity of social entrepreneurs, mentor social entrepreneurs, and understand the ecosystem. The programme also provides effective tools for idea generation, business design & planning, sales and marketing, impact communication and pitching of business ideas. In the end, the participants will be required to take a test to assess acquired skills and competencies.

The workshops are led by ARCO (Action Research for CO-development) Research Centre (Italy) and ARPA Consulting with around 15 years of experience in the social economy, circular economy and local and inclusive development

The Master Training Programme is the first step of the multi-stage process towards the creation of a Social Enterprise Platform in Azerbaijan, and the series will be continued by the capacity-building workshops for around 40 socially oriented organizations and companies working around the SDGs solutions. This will be followed by ideation and acceleration programmes where organizations will generate social business ideas and turn them into real business while benefiting from the financial support provided by the project.

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This activity is delivered by the ‘Developing innovation-driven and sustainable civil society in Azerbaijan’ project, funded by the EU and implemented by UNDP. The project aims to support the increase in civil society organisations’ capacities to engage in policy-making processes, help local development, and promote social entrepreneurship in the country.