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5.4 Inclusion of women in the SME Development Policy: Support for Growth-oriented Women Entrepreneurs in Tanzania, 2005

Guest post by: International Labour Organization

Article Overview: Recognizing that women have less access to productive resources such as land, credit and education due to cultural barriers, and that they stand on uneven ground, the SME Development Policy specifies that gender mainstreaming will be enhanced in all initiatives pertaining to SME development, and outlines the need for specific measures that promote women’s entrepreneurship. These are stated as follows:

5.4 Inclusion of women in the SME Development Policy: Support for Growth-oriented Women Entrepreneurs in Tanzania, 2005

Recognizing that women have less access to productive resources such as land,
credit and education due to cultural barriers, and that they stand on uneven ground, the
SME Development Policy specifies that gender mainstreaming will be enhanced in all
initiatives pertaining to SME development, and outlines the need for specific measures
that promote women’s entrepreneurship. These are stated as follows:

• facilitate SME service providers to design special programmes for women
entrepreneurs and disadvantaged groups; and

• identify factors inhibiting women and disadvantaged groups from going into business
and design programmes to address those factors.

Although by November 2003 specific strategies for addressing women’s enterprise
development had not been drafted, according to a key informant, the implementation plan
will take a sectoral approach supported by the rationale, “if you want to grow the
Tanzanian economy, you have to develop the food sector, and if you want to do that, then
you have to develop women”.

To complement the Government’s focus on women entrepreneurs, the MIT-SME
Section is also the implementing partner for the ILO’s WEDGE30 Programme in
Tanzania. One officer’s time is dedicated to leading projects to promote women’s
entrepreneurship, building capacity in associations of women entrepreneurs, and
implementing gender mainstreaming workshops for government officials, donor
organizations and BDS providers. One of the key outputs from the gender streaming
initiative is the FAMOS (female and male operated small enterprises) Check, a gender
audit tool that is being used in training workshops to sensitize organizations in dealing
directly with SMEs, and to assist them in monitoring how specific interventions are reaching and impacting both women and men.31 The proposed SME Development Data
Bank will contain information on sex-disaggregated data in SME interventions as
reported by stakeholders.

In their review of development partner and donor efforts, Olomi and Nchimbi
(2002) concluded that SME policies and programmes of the past have differed in the
extent to which they addressed gender issues. Some have shown the need to address
women’s needs but fell short of specific strategies, while others did come up with
specific strategies. UDEC later carried out a survey of donor-supported programmes on
behalf of the Africa Project Development Facility (APDF), and in February 2003
released a directory of donor-supported SME and private sector programmes (Olomi,
Baisi and Philemon, 2003).

It does not appear that a large proportion of donor attention
has been placed on the business development and growth needs of women entrepreneurs.
However, it is noted that the Donor Advisory Committee (DAC) (now the Donors
Partners Group) has occasionally established DAC sub-groups to focus on a particular
sector or issue. A case in point is the Sub-group on Micro-finance. It is suggested that a
similar approach be adopted by donor groups interested in addressing some of the serious
challenges that are impeding the further growth and development of women’s enterprises
in Tanzania, particularly capacity building of women-owned MSEs and improving access
to financing, training, and business development services.

Related Articles
  1.2 Mission Objectives: Support for Growth-oriented Women Entrepreneurs in Tanzania, 2005
  1.3 Methodology: Support for Growth-oriented Women Entrepreneurs in Tanzania, 2005
  1.1 Background and Introduction: Support for Growth-oriented Women Entrepreneurs in Tanzania, 2005
  8.0 Promotion of women’s entrepreneurship: Support for Growth-oriented Women Entrepreneurs in Tanzania, 2005
  7.0 Policy/programme coordination and leadership: Support for Growth-oriented Women Entrepreneurs in Tanzania, 2005

Article Tags: Africa Project Development Facility APDF, business development, development, entrepreneurship, gender mainstreaming, MIT SME Section, SME development, SME Development Data Bank, SME Development Policy, SME policies, women and men, women entrepreneurs



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