• WBDA programmes in the UK have been heavily oversubscribed as we have tapped into significant unmet need.• Partners and clients identified under-capitalisation and inability to access finance as the main reasons for the failure of women-owned businesses Support to overcome this does not exist in partner countries and is very patchy across Europe. • Our research highlighted both the lack of business start-up programmes specific to female entrepreneurs and the poor levels of engagement between business support agencies and women. • Mentoring support for women, if it exists, is not benchmarked to any standard of good practice, nor is training offered and women preferred a transformational rather than a transactional approach to learning.During our project:• Created a comprehensive enterprise service for women entrepreneurs,capable of replication across Member States, supporting them from pre-start through to business start up and growth. It is about VET to support women in business. We:• Delivered innovative investment readiness programmes in 4 countries, UK, Poland, Italy , Spain.• Created a methodology for women-friendly access to finance networks in any country.• Developed a blueprint for an international mentoring standard for excellence in supporting women entrepreneurs. This will be exploited after the end of the project.• Delivered business start-up programmes supporting women facing particular challenges in the UK, Italy, Spain and Poland.Our consortium was led by the Women’s Business Development Agency. The Polish national Chambers of Commerce and the Turin Association of SMEs (women's section) brought their experience in business support for women. AEFAEMME (the association of organisations supporting women-owned businesses in the Mediterranean basin) and NBJ Associates of Italy offered extensive dissemination routes. Birmingham University Business School provided an independent and academic evaluation of the project.