Boxed Text: The Presentations
Box
6: Sten Lindberg, Kvinnoforum
In order
to satisfy a need for more integration between financial and non-financial
sources of support for women-led micro and small enterprises (MSEs),
Kvinoforum delivers training that combines business skills with
gender awareness. Kvinoforum has observed that microfinance schemes
targeted at this market niche are often automatically considered
to be gender sensitive since the beneficiaries are mostly women.
At the same time, minimalist credit providers do not offer complementary
programmes to address gender-related barriers faced by women in
business. In some organizations, the result is a lack of synergy
between microfinance and other forms of support for women’s
enterprises, such as training and counseling that can address
the barriers that women face. In other cases, microfinance providers
may take a welfare/charity perspective on financing and advising
women entrepreneurs. Without useful information on small business
management and business skills, the clients of such organizations
may continue earning subsistence-level incomes or fail entirely.
With the support of the Inter-American Development Bank, Kvinoforum recently conducted a training that addressed both business skills and gender issues for 50 women microentrepreneurs in Mexico. Training techniques included the business simulation game CHANGE, which consisted of a real market day, role-plays, and visits by bankers and successful women entrepreneurs. The business simulation was very much appreciated by the women as a way to build and apply a mental model of important aspects of a business. This highly interactive game, as well as the concrete role plays and exercises, allowed participants to learn relevant issues regardless of their level of formal education, which varied from college-level coursework in business administration to near-illiteracy. In addition to increased business skills, concrete outcomes of the course were business plans for each participants’ business, significant modifications of participants’ business strategies and products, registering of their businesses, better bookkeeping practices, healthier cash management and loan habits, creation of spontaneous networks, and co-operation in marketing and selling. These results demonstrate the potential of non-financial interventions to encourage the growth and development of women’s enterprises, either in conjunction with or independently of credit.
