a report on the outcome of the algerian programme delivered by agence nationale de soutien a l emploi des jeunes ansej revealed that of the enterprises created from were led by young women mpmea the argument for the gender mainstreaming approach is that it is better from a resources perspective to ensure that mainstream business development service providers are sufficiently sensitive to the needs of women since it avoids duplication although there are some examples in the mena region of mainstream business development organisations which have made it a priority to integrate women into their client base the business development centre in jordan as a case in point the infrastructure of generic sme support organisations is still generally underdeveloped in addition given the stronglyheld cultural gender biases it would take considerable time and effort to gendersensitise bds service providers counsellors and trainers this work should begin but it will be insufficient in itself to overcome the current systemic and market failures in mena economies with respect to business service provision to women entrepreneurs there are many examples of such initiatives in developed countries which demonstrate their effectiveness