UNESCO Tehran Cluster Office, in cooperation with UNIDO and the Iranian Technical and Vocational Training Organization (TVTO) under the Ministry of Cooperatives, Labour, and Social Welfare, organized a training workshop for 13 entrepreneurship trainers from various provinces of Iran on the use of UNIDO’s Computer Model for Feasibility Analysis and Reporting (COMFAR). The workshop was held from 21 May – 1 June 2017 at the TVTO Instructor Training Centre (TVTO-ITC) in Karaj.
Based on the fact that high-quality pre-investment advice leads to better projects, thus contributes to increasing local and foreign investments, UNIDO has equipped public and private stakeholders with tools and methodologies for project appraisal and feasibility analysis – including the COMFAR software.
COMFAR facilitates short and long term analysis of financial and economic consequences for industrial and non-industrial projects. COMFAR is accompanied by manuals, teaching materials and interlinked software for project identification and preparation.
The workshop is a follow-up to a similar training on entrepreneurship development held in 2015 that was also co-organized by UNESCO, UNIDO, and TVTO. The event took place at the Isfahan Regional Centre for Technology Business Incubators and Science Parks Development (under the auspices of UNESCO) in the city of Isfahan from 28 November to 1 December 2015.
The 2015 workshop aimed at enhancing the knowledge and skills of entrepreneurship trainers in conducting feasibility studies on entrepreneurship projects. The 38 workshop participants, including 15 women, were also TVTO entrepreneurship trainers from 19 provinces of Iran.
The 2017 Karaj workshop was organized in response to a request from TVTO and entrepreneurship trainers for further capacity building on SMEs, Advanced Business Planning, Business Models. In particular, TVTO requested specialized training on the latest version of the COMFAR software.
Participants of the workshop included three female and ten male entrepreneurship trainers from 12 provinces of Iran (Gilan, Sistan and Baluchestan, Golestan, Kurdistan, Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari, Bushehr, Isfahan, Qazvin, Razavi Khorasan, West Azerbaijan, East Azerbaijan and Semnan), who are all certified trainers from TVTO-ITC.
These trainers completed 100-150 hours of Entrepreneurship Training in 2010 and they are certified as well by the International Labour Organization (ILO).
The 13 entrepreneurship trainers participated in the four-day workshop on Entrepreneurship Development in Isfahan in 2015 where they were introduced to feasibility studies on entrepreneurship projects through the use of UNIDO’s COMFAR software.
This year, the participants were provided more in-depth training on COMFAR, particularly in conducting pre-investment studies and bankable projects; strengthening human resources; promoting investment; and conducting feasibility studies and financial analyses.
On 1 June 2017, a closing ceremony was held to award the successful participants with certificates.
This post was originally published by UN Iran. Click here to read.