Linko international:

Social norms and traditional values hold women back from fully participating in economic activities. Social norms and traditional patriarchal systems continue to create a barrier to women’s full participation in economic activities. Often women’s abilities and potential are undervalued and questioned. Women’s networks and associations have the potential to increase women’s self-esteem and their access to a range of services. A serious but continuous awareness campaign towards promotion of women entrepreneurship is unavoidable in the prevailing situations and to impact on the future.

Inadequate access to financial services is another stumbling block for women, despite the success of micro credit organizations across Gilgit-Baltistan. With respect to access to loans from the banking sector, women entrepreneurs identified lack of capital and assets as obstacles.

Inadequate business skills and lack of access to markets also hinder the growth of women’s enterprises. The major obstacles identified by women entrepreneurs include a lack of skills in entrepreneurship and product development, as well as insufficient training, both theoretical and practical, in marketing. Women are less likely to have a business-related education background, which is an important determinant of entrepreneurial success. Improving women’s access to markets can also help expand their business and customer base.

Linko International in collaboration with the government and financial institutions want to start a serious campaign towards promotion of women entrepreneurship supplemented by mobilization and conducting training for potential and interested women. Moreover, through such a Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) Linko International will build around marketable entrepreneurial skills with provision of incubation services. Once build on each step successfully, more educated women will be engaged in businesses

A situational analysis of workforce production in Gilgit-Baltistan

Every year on an average almost six thousand men and women graduates enter into labour force. Table 1 shows a breakup of details regarding the institution wise production and their nature of education. According to the UNICEF assessment in Gilgit-Baltistan (2016) there are more than 70, 000 children are still out of schools.

Table 2 shows the sector wise placements annually. Around 4,000 (average 4250) people get jobs within or outside of Gilgit-Baltistan annually. Almost 30 % population of working age remain unemployed every year. Which is quite higher than the rest of Pakistan (5.9 %) (graph 1). Pathetically, almost 70 % of total unemployed individual are female (table 4 and graph 2). This causes economic, social and psychological distresses among the women population. Public sector has already over saturated with political and nepotised placements in the region. In a wider picture, public sector only offers 25 % of job creations annually in the Gilgit-Baltistan (table 3).

Table 1 Showing Estimated students’ population graduating annually from Gilgit-Baltistan

S.No.	Institution producing workforce	Graduating Students’ Population per annum	Reference
1	Karakoram International University (main campus)	1100-1500    [avg. 1300]	Self Est.
2	Karakoram International University (campuses)	400-500         [Avg. 450]	Self Est.
3	Other graduation level colleges in Gilgit-Baltistan	700-1000       [Avg. 850]	Self Est.
4	Student population graduating from rest of Pakistan	1200-1500     [Avg. 1350]	Self Est.
5	Drop out students from Higher Secondary Level	1800-2300     [Avg. 2050]	Self Est.
6	Average per annum jobs required	5200-6800     [Avg. 6000]	Self Est.
	Overall out of school children in GB	70,000-70,000 [2016]	Unicef
	TOTAL [Range, Average]	75,200-76,800 [Avg. 76,000]

Table 2 showing sector wise employment generation annually