There are over 30 business associations in Tanzania, seven of which are identified as being representative of SMEs (MIT, 2002). Only four of the total are oriented towards women members:43 the Tanzania Food Producers Association (TAFOPA), the Artisan’s Development Agency, the Federation of Associations of Women Entrepreneurs in Tanzania (FAWETA), and the newly-formed Association of Women Entrepreneurs of Zanzibar (AWEZA) (see Table 9). Information gained from key informants in the interview process revealed that awareness of and membership in business and industry associations is low among women. Seven per cent of women are in Chambers of Commerce/business associations; 25 per cent are in women-targeted associations.
At this point, women entrepreneurs’ associations are not well developed and collectively represent a very small number of members. They are challenged by their dependency on volunteerism, weak organizational structures and lack of management capacity. Financial constraints impede their ability to bring in paid management and administrative resources required to facilitate the delivery of membership services, and to take on mandate-related projects. In some cases, their by-law provisions do not provide for associate membership categories (e.g., non-entrepreneurs) that would permit the participation of professional women from the MSE support environment – women who could provide valuable managerial “know-how” and access to various other needed competencies, resources and networks. Marketing and promotion issues also need to be addressed. Over 80 per cent of the women in the ILO (2003) study who did not belong to women entrepreneurs’ associations cited “lack of awareness” as the major reason.
FAWETA is the largest and oldest women entrepreneurs’ association. Although it has experienced a number of growing pains, it does cite a substantial membership of over 3,500 members (see Box 4.1). This membership base consists of individual women as well as women who belong through other associations of women entrepreneurs. The Dar es Salaam members meet every Tuesday to share information and ideas, and they inform other groups through the Internet.
FAWETA’s National Coordinator tries to stay abreast of SME policy issues and to link with key opinion leaders in the government and private sector. The President of Tanzania has encouraged them to become a more vital force in the economy by helping women upgrade their enterprises. The MIT helps them to set up branches in other regions.
Box 1: The Federation of Associations of Women Entrepreneurs of Tanzania The Federation of Associations of Women Entrepreneurs of Tanzania (FAWETA) is the Tanzanian chapter of the Federation National Association of Women in Eastern and Southern African Countries. It was formed and registered in 1993 and its members are mostly from other women’s groups. As of December 2003, FAWETA included about 3,500 women in its collective membership.
Its principal objectives are: to create more awareness of the concerns and issues of women in business; to encourage women to set up enterprises or expand existing ones; serve as a link between members and regional trade organizations and NGOs to promote trade and development; increase awareness of women in business on issues at the policy level, and; to increase women’s participation in decision-making.
Among its strategies are to:
• encourage and facilitate the formation of women associations on a voluntary basis; • devise programmes for existing associations to strengthen themselves; • promote business training and entrepreneurship development among members by way of courses, trade fairs and workshops; • coordinate trade promotion and development with relevant forums in the field of industry, agriculture, energy, transport, natural resources and mining; • disseminate business and technical information to women in business; • look for export markets for member’s products, and networks within COMESA/SADC in search for markets, joint ventures, and financing.
Information can be obtained from cge@email.com. Elizabeth Seme is the National Coordinator.
In a briefing paper recently presented to the Government of Tanzania, dated November 12, 2003,44 FAWETA outlined the current issues facing women entrepreneurs and made recommendations for actions to address these challenges. Among the key issues listed were:
• Lack of education and experience – women need more exposure to both.
• Lack of capital for expanding existing enterprises or to start new ones – women entrepreneurs access disproportionately low amounts of credit from lending institutions and are unable to properly finance their enterprises for sustainability, let alone growth.
• Lack of markets – markets are saturated for products of many women microenterprisers and they have difficulties in moving to higher value markets.
• Lack of access to information and communications technology (ICT) – few women entrepreneurs are able to access and use ICT to learn about markets, suppliers, export opportunities, etc.
• Lack of skills and knowledge – women are lacking the necessary skills in undertaking entrepreneurial work.
• Lack of motivation for growth due to marginalization by society. Tanzania society believes that micro-enterprises are for women and large enterprises for men.
• FAWETA recommended the following initiatives to enable more women to improve the performance of their enterprises:
• Entrepreneurship training for women entrepreneurs; • Information and communications technology training; • Revolving seed funds dedicated to meeting their financing needs; • HIV/AIDS awareness training – women entrepreneurs should be enlightened on issues relating to the impact of HIV/AIDS on their enterprises.
During the ILO-AfDB consultants’ field investigations, many key informants concurred that women entrepreneurs in Tanzania would benefit from a forum to share information, challenges, solutions, and experiences, enhance their management ability, encourage each other, and learn more about the MSME environment. They also agreed that women entrepreneurs need to be represented as a “voice” to government, international donors, service providers and the financial community regarding improved access to credit, training, business development services, technical assistance, premises and markets, as well as in highlighting the impact of policies and programmes on the performance of women-owned enterprises.
One of the key recommendations from the ILO (2003) report was stated as follows:
… set up a support programme for promoting the networking of women entrepreneurs with the option of developing associations. The programme should support the formation and strengthening of women’s associations especially in the fields of marketing, organization and governance so that they can attract enough members to become effective in advocacy, provision of services to members, and eventually become financially sustainable ... The Ministry of Industry and Trade could design this programme in association with a local business services (BDS) provider, with the possibility of technical and financial support from the International Labour Organization (ILO) as part of its support for women’s entrepreneurship development in Tanzania. (ILO, 2003, p. 51)
Subsequently, ILO’s WEDGE team and the MIT-SME Section have collaborated in a capacity-building project to respond to this recommendation. Workshops have been delivered to representatives of nascent and newly-formed women entrepreneurs’
associations to help them work through decision-making processes related to organizational structure, governance, member services, and project planning. One of the most recently formed associations, the Association of Women Entrepreneurs of Zanzibar (AWEZA), has benefited substantially from ILO-WEDGE training. During informant interviews, officials from AWEZA explained the importance of their affiliation.
A lot of women in Zanzibar belong to small groups to produce things, like soap or batik, but these groups were all scattered. We wanted to be one big group so we could challenge government to get resources … We wanted men to start seeing that women can do it.
Some of us used to be members of a micro-enterprise association but we felt that our voice wasn’t heard so we decided to start our own (women’s) association.
AWEZA’s goals are to encourage other women to mobilize in groups and become members, and to help members find markets to sell their products. Since forming in the fall of 2003, they have convinced the Zanzibar Government to give them a market stall so they would have a place to showcase and sell their products. The association is pursuing formal registration with the Government and making plans to develop the leadership and organizational skills of its governing board. At this point, AWEZA is not a FAWETA member.
As an outcome of the work with AWEZA and other Tanzanian WEAs, the ILOWEDGE team is completing an operational guide on starting and managing a women entrepreneurs’ association. This would be an excellent tool for other groups that want to form such an association.
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