3rd Community of Practice for Women Business Support Service Centers

To help strengthen local women business service centers in Cities Development Initiative (CDI) cities, USAID hosted the “3rd Community of Practice for Women Business Support Service Centers” on June 1, 2021. Around 93 representatives from local business support service centers, local partner agencies, and MSMEs from the CDI cities gained more knowledge on the important strategies and action plans in establishing a localized market and resource portals that cater to the needs of women entrepreneurs and other MSMEs. Mr. Leonard Flores, Department Head of General Santos City Economic Management and Cooperative Development Office (CEMCDO) highlighted the importance of ensuring logistical support at the onset of the pandemic, in addition to securing budget allocation from the local government. Mr. Karlo Angelo Alamares, Creator of the MyAlbay Portal in Legazpi City, shared his experience of encouraging members of the Daraga Market Market to collect as much data, photos and other materials to showcase their products online and engage with prospective buyers. Ms. Raelita Legaspi, MSME Consultant of Ginama Entrepreneurial Development Center in Cagayan de Oro explained that the Small Business Information Resource (SBIR) Portal was conceived to be the home of their mentoring program for established and start-up MSMEs in Cagayan de Oro City. Mr. John Vincent Gastanes, Co-Founder of GoPalengke in Puerto Princesa, shared that GoPalengke is not just an online portal but a collaboration among Farm Konek, a community-based ecosystem supporting the platform, the City Agriculture Office of Puerto Princesa, and other private sectors in the city to help the farm producers on their production, post-harvest and marketing. The Community of Practice (CoP) approach was introduced by USAID in December 2020 to regularly serve as a venue for sharing and learning experiences and approaches among the eight CDI partner cities on women entrepreneurial development