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Turning Ideas into Businesses
ADB Review [ January - February 2004 ]

Business training leads to new ventures for women in Uzbekistan

By David Kruger (dkruger@adb.org)
External Relations Specialist

TASHKENT OBLAST, UZBEKISTAN

As the temperature fell in Ahangaran Rayon, Tashkent Oblast late last year, Almatova Buvaysha’s fields were bare. Vegetables from her half-hectare plot of land had been harvested and stored, and the family was hunkering down for a long, cold winter.

It will be her first sale since entering the cattle-breeding business in 2002, and will add Ms. Buvaysha’s name to a growing list of women in Uzbekistan and other countries in the Asia and Pacific region who have benefited from the Gender and Development (GAD) Initiative Fund supported by the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

In Tashkent Oblast (region), the local office of the Business Women’s Association of Uzbekistan (BWA) used part of a $10,000 grant to hold 3-day training seminars for 130 women and 19 men in nine districts, and provide consultation services to 356 women interested in opening their own businesses.

The program provided a range of information designed to bring rural women up to speed on the rules and requirements of starting a new business. The seminars included information on accounting procedures, tax issues, entrepreneurs’ rights, business planning, and bank loan application.

For Ms. Buvaysha the instruction on how to create a business plan was a turning point. For years, she had wanted to open her own business but the banks refused her loan applications.

After the training, she prepared a business plan, found a guarantor, and got a SUM680,000 ($700) loan from the State Employment Fund. She used the first tranche of SUM340,000 ($350) to buy two cows in 2002. She now has eight cattle and expects to sell two cows for SUM340,000 ($350) each in February.

“This training brought luck and happiness to our family,” says Ms. Buvaysha. “Before the training, we were blind. But now we have become open to the world.”

Despite high levels of education and a surfeit of entrepreneurial spirit, many women in Uzbekistan lack access to capital and basic information on what it takes to start a new business, says Mekhri Khudayberdiyeva, ADB Gender Specialist, Uzbekistan Resident Mission.

In Bukhara Oblast, in central Uzbekistan, the demand for information far exceeded expectations, she says. The local Business Women Association (BWA) office planned to train 160 rural women on opening a small business, but expanded the project to accommodate 220 applications. The association also provided individual consultations to 1,235 women, more than double the planned 500.

Over 100 new farms were created and over 200 women found jobs as a result of the Bukhara training and consultations. Across Uzbekistan, about 80% of rural women, trained under the GAD initiative, joined newly created credit unions, and 84 of them have received loans from local banks.

Pulatova Gulchehra, Chairperson of the Ahangaran Rayon chapter of BWA, says the training in her district has touched many more women than those who participated in the program. The information started a chain reaction as the women trained passed on information and inspired others with their success. About 50 women are now on a waiting list for seminars. “Even this short-term training has had a big impact,” says Ms. Gulchehra.

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