Gender and Development

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Uzbekistan

Training of Women Entrepreneurs, Business Women Association – Bukhara Oblast

Project Objectives:

The project involves training of women-entrepreneurs. The specific objectives of the project are to: (i) raise women’s awareness of economic opportunities available to them; (ii) build knowledge of women’s legal rights; (iii) create employment for women and their families; (iv) facilitate interaction among women in order that they can co-operatively identify opportunities for women entrepreneurs. It is expected that the training seminars will create a solid base for BWA to set up microcredit schemes for women entrepreneurs.

Project Completion:

31 October 2001(The implementation period is 12 months)

Scope and Activity:

Project activities include organising and carrying out training seminars, launching of an information campaign. BWA will analyse its experience in the project to learn lessons in enhancing women’s entrepreneurial skills. As estimated 160 women entrepreneurs and their families will directly benefit from the improved ability of women to engage in income-earning activities. BWA will tap the women that were trained to establish women’s microcredit co-operatives.

Project implementation results:

Major outputs of the training program are:

• Training sessions in 7 rayons were conducted;
• 157 rural women (more than originally expected) were trained;
• 68 women opened their own small business;
• 183 new jobs were created;
• 26 women received loans from the local bank;
• 17 women are in the process of getting loan from the local banks;
• 639 rural women were given a consultation sessions on how to start their small businesses.

Integration of Gender Issues:

This grant is clearly a women-targeted project, which calls for women’s participation in the small entrepreneurship activity such as handicrafts, weaving and fancywork, sewing and tailoring, off-season vegetable and fruit production and new enterprises. The understanding of gender as a crosscutting subject was developed from the very beginning. Initially meetings were held in rayons of Bukhara Oblast with the Chairperson of BWA to brief training participants about the need for looking at gender issues in the project. Emphasis was given on ADB’s approach of mainstreaming gender in ADB-financed projects. As a result of the above activities, a better understanding on gender and development (GAD) issues has been created within the project.

Other issues:

• Women participants emphasized that they need more training to increase their understanding of business promotion and marketing, money management and record-keeping, banking training for group leaders and management training. They also were unanimous in their desire for further skill development training for income generation.
• Future requirements for group formation and training include (i) skill development training need to be associated with microcredit program (ii) knowledge and skill for developing a cadre of new entrepreneurs to adopt off-farm microentrerprises (iii) institutional strengthening of NGOs; (iv) provide essential banking training to the NGOs staff;
• There is considerable unmet demand among women for credit of the local banks for business expansion in small enterprises. These women have difficulty meeting the complex requirements of bank;
• There is a need to improve dissemination of entrepreneurial knowledge, especially among rural women, having a lack of experience and skills of managing small enterprises;

Findings:

• Project was designed particularly to address gender considerations and improve the status of women;
• The local Government supports the BWA activities and welcomes the increasing number of new jobs created.
• Empowerment of women was confirmed by their involvement in business activities and social interactions with other group members and BWAs. They now actively participate in household matters in terms of financial contribution and decision-making process in the family;
• Project has provided benefits to families, particularly women, through the provision of improved access to the banks, property and business education;
• The BWA has enough training and technical capacity and staff to continue and replicate this project to another rayons in the country;
• The RETA of this nature provides an opportunity to finance small NGOs such as BWAs at low cost, requiring minimal processing and ADB resources. It also assists local institutions to develop their GAD capacity, and pilot-test new initiatives.

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