The Human Resource Development Fund (HADAF) is putting the final touches to implement a project to support women to work from home and for productive families within the next three months. The project is a solution to women’s unemployment where they will get the necessary support to establish their own small businesses.

Working from home is an emerging global trend and the Saudi government’s initiative in this regard will lend to decreasing poverty levels among women in particular. A recent study showed that women can save up to 40 percent of their income by working from home.

Ibrahim Al-Maiqil, director general of HADAF, said girls who wish to work from home will be given a temporary license to facilitate their projects, in addition to incubators which afford moral and material support. The fund will establish an electronic portal which will contain all the information related to working from home.

Al-Maiqil said that the project is an important venture and will serve as a nucleus to offer support to women working from home. He said this initiative aims to facilitate work mechanisms until an agreement is reached between participating entities.

Al-Maiqil said that the lack of licensing was hampering the efforts of the project and had to be resolved immediately. “A permanent solution will have to be reached to grant licenses to women working from home as this project relieves women from the burden of having to pay rent or any other expenditure,” he said. He added that relevant ministries realized the need for licensing and the recommendation had undergone extensive studies. “An electronic portal will soon be launched in cooperation with a national establishment to add legislations, proofs, information and data needed by women who want to work from home,” he said.

He said it is necessary to set up various and multiple incubators, because the number of existing incubators is rather limited and the economic activities need to be diversified.

An incubator doesn’t necessarily need have to take the conventional form of taking care of a certain activity such as working from home or productive families, Al-Maiqil.

He explained that an incubator which takes care of productive families in cooperation with entities that are proficient in supporting pioneering businesses will benefit from the experience of others. “For example, families can benefit from the experience of Al-Qasim vocational society which has been successful,” he elaborated.

According to World Bank estimates women form 40 percent of the population and 70 percent of the world’s poor with more than half of them being unemployed.