Introduction

The predicament visualized on the path to economically empowering women

(the case of Addis Ababa)

Presented on the 4^th international conference

Tadelech Debele

June 2006

Abstract

A little over half the world population is women whose roles, responsibilities and potential contribution to the families, communities and the society place them at the center of locally –manageable, cost –effective and sustainable development. They are involved in large numbers in agriculture, food security and community development.

It is generally accepted that women are disproportionately represented among the world’s poorest people. In its 1995 Human Development Report, the UNDP reported that 70 percent of the 1.3 billion people living on less than $1 per day are women. According to the World Bank’s gender statistics database, women have a higher unemployment rate than men in virtually every country. In general, women also make up the majority of the lower paid, unorganized informal sector of most economies. These statistics are used to justify giving priority to increasing women’s access to financial services on the grounds that women are relatively more disadvantaged than men

In Ethiopia, Women constitute more than 50 % of the population whereas their economic role is not envisaged appropriately. Thus the contribution of women in the economic sphere is not deniable but due to the subordination their role is not magnified.

Considering this, various efforts were made in isolation Government, donors international as well as local NGOs to assist resource poor women to be engaged in various income generating activities. Accordingly the support is done by organizing women in groups or providing individual assistance to address the specific target.

However, do the designed programmes address the problem in a proper and anticipated way? Do the strategies designed are following a paradigm appropriate to sustain the actualized programmes to reach the envisioned goal? If not what will be needed to fill the gaps?

Thus, the paper tries to envisage the general efforts done to women to be self sustained and economically empowered in Addis Ababa by taking the intervention of three organizations. Accordingly, it looks at the organizations approach to tackle poverty through assisting women to engage in micro and small business and visualize the gaps seen in these approaches in order to reach at a conclusion and recommend possible interventions which could be utilized to sustain the initiations to reach the common goal.

1. Introduction

Women have multifaceted problems which directly play a role to their contribution to wards the economy .They are for the most part economically dependent due to cultural, political as well as social problem. Considering the fact programmes are designed to support women to be engaged in micro and small business which paves way to be self-employed and in the mean time to contribute to the family income. The programs are recently focusing to support women in various forms. Some of the programmes are designed strictly following a credit system while some are designed in integrated manner by incorporating a package programmes on health education, credit etc. The paper strives to look on if these systems achieve the specific goal on the enhancement of the livelihood of women anticipated as an input to the national economy.

Accordingly it tries to see the background of the women situation in the economy and conceptualize empowerment by emphasizing on the economical participation. The second part focuses on the different approaches utilized to alleviate the problem starting from the objective and prospect of the respective organizations. The third part strives to analyze the effectiveness of the approaches to meet the objective through analyzing the outcome by investigating the conditions of the sample beneficiaries in relating with the available literature in the area.

The fourth and last part based on the findings will recommend possible solutions to fill the visualized gaps on the approach and provide a concluding remark.

1.1 Back ground

Women shoulder the most hazardous domestic work as well as supplementary jobs related to the reproductive nature. However the societies disregard their contribution in the social, political and economic area. This outlook couldn’t prevent women from participating in the sphere even though the recognition is not accepted. Because, they are the one responsible to the facts and the problems. Women are more nearer to the children, to the household activity and are more responsible to the need of the family. Research done by UNDP, UNIFEM, and the World Bank, among others, indicates that gender inequalities in developing societies inhibit economic growth and development. The UNDP found a very strong correlation between its gender empowerment measure and gender-related development indices in its Human Development Index. Overall, evidence is mounting that improved gender equality is a critical component of any development strategy.

Ethiopia is one of the least developed nations with a total population of 65 million out of which over 50 % are women. Poverty in Ethiopia is pervasive, deep and persistent. Findings of the existing studies confirm that women in Ethiopia are more vulnerable to poverty which verifies that the majority of the women population is found below poverty line. Thus, at present, close to 45% of the population are living under absolute poverty and female-headed households constitute nearly 15-20% of the poor households in the country.

This reality has paved way to design strategies that focus on empowerment of women. The concept of empowerment in this context encompasses multiple dimensions: economic, political and legal, socio-cultural and psychological. Thus it focuses to the key element of development (access to resources such as assets, lands, capital, technology etc.).

1.2 Purpose of the paper

The fastest growing source of employment for women in Africa, especially Sub-Saharan Africa has been the informal sector where women engage in a wide array of activities, especially trading. Urban dwelling poor Women are mostly engaged in the informal sector. The sector is easy to enter and exist freely with out disturbing significantly the formal sector of the economy. In Ethiopia among those who have engaged in the informal sector 65% are women. This has become apparent to be an important strategy for women to contribute to family income at a time when the formal labour markets have been stagnant or growing very slowly. Thus it has emerged as an approach for dealing with women and men’s increasing unemployment arising from the implementation of economic reform policies in Africa. However, for the most part, the informal sector suffers from lack of systematic and regular support in the form of official policies and resources. Nevertheless, if there is no consistent and growing nature in the sector there is no way out of the viscous circle of poverty. Thus based on the experience in the area and the endeavors of the programs designed by government, Non government and international donor agencies to support women, a question arise is, is it enough to propagate only that women are organized and obtained a short term assistance? Could the assistance provided and resources disbursed have bought a sustainable change in the livelihood of women? If not the economical empowerment approach is in danger. If we try to engage women in small and micro business the cycle relatively should grow from the smaller scale to larger scale. The growing disadvantage faced by women in education, employment and health care, is a threatening to the economic growth. It is undermining efforts to reduce poverty and achieve the MDG. Women are increasingly vulnerable and their welfare is threatened. Therefore we should emphasis on the role of the government, non government and the civil society to sustain such programmes. Otherwise the effort excreted will not bring the anticipated change particularly in the life of the women and the society at large which has direct relation with the national economy.

Thus the paper focus how to capacitate such programmes to empower women economically in a sustainable way by designing a systematized approach to enhance the micro business based on the existing approaches.

Besides it will help the policy makers and donor organizations to design strategies on supporting micro business specially owned by women to reach the targeted goal to bring about sustainable change in their livelihood.

2.2 Methodology

The study utilizes both primary and secondary sources. For the Primary sources it took

samples from women oriented organizations and saving and credit cooperatives which are working for the economic empowerment of women. Thus, the study administered structured questioners and focus group discussions. The samples are selected by utilizing straight line methods on SRS from three organizations. The total number of respondents was 118.

The three organiztions are selected because all of them are working in Addis Ababa and have similar goal which is poverty alleviation. Besides, the beneficiaries of the three organizations are dispersed in the 10 sub cities of Addis Ababa. Thus the out put is expected to reflect the over all situations regarding income generating activities in the areas. In addition, the study tries to look on the objectives of MFI’s functioning especially in Addis Ababa in order to see their contribution in full filling the gaps seen in micro business development.

1.3 What the paper is not.

The study doesn’t envisage the detailed activities on each organizations approach. Besides it doesn’t try to analyze the impact of the approaches on the livelihood of the beneficiaries. However it tries to show the efforts made by the organizations to address the problem of empowerment and to look at what should be still remaining to sustain and achieve the objectives from the observations and the direct respond of the sample respondents.

2. Conceptual frame work of empowerment

Most of us, when asked, have a great deal of difficulty defining empowerment. The word does not even translate literally into many languages.

Practioners have used the terms self-reliance and self-respect to define it. According to UNIFEM, “gaining the ability to generate choices and exercise bargaining power,” “developing a sense of self-worth, a belief in one’s ability to secure desired changes, and the right to control one’s life” are important elements of women’s empowerment.[1] Empowerment is an implicit, if not explicit, goal of a great number of development projects. Empowerment is about change, choice, and power. It is a process of change by which individuals or groups with little or no power gain the power and ability to make choices that affect their lives. The structures of power—who has it, what its sources are, and how it is exercised—directly affect the choices that women are able to make in their lives.[2] Empowerment is a construct shared by many disciplines and arenas: community development, psychology, education, economics and studies of social movements and organizations among others. Thus how empowerment is understood varies among these perspectives. “Empowerment of women and gender equality are prerequisites for achieving political, social, economic, cultural, and environmental security among all peoples.”[3]

In recent empowerment literatures, the meaning of the term empowerment is often assumed rather than explained or defined. Rapport (1984) has noted that it is easy to define empowerment by its absence but difficult to define in action as it takes on different forms in different people and contexts. Even defining the concept is subject to debate. Zimmerman(1984) has stated that asserting a single definition of empowerment may make attempts to achieve it formulate or prescription-like, contradicting the very concept of empowerment. According to Baley (1992),how we precisely define empowerment with in our projects and programs will depend upon the specific people and context involved. As general definition Empowerment is a multi dimensional concept .It implies control over one’s life and destiny .It is concerned having personal choices, options and decision making authority and access to resources, time and space. It is process that fosters power in people for use in their own lives ,their communities and in their society by acting on issues that they define important.

Based on the purpose of the paper empowerment of women should be reflected on the decision making power. Thus, Women’s ability to influence or make decisions that affect their lives and their futures is considered to be one of the principal components of empowerment by most scholars. It is much less clear, however, what types of decisions and what degree of influence should be classified as empowerment in different contexts. Particularly, decision making power at house hold level will have impact on the family economy through which sharing the responsibility on the upbringing of children and related terms could be capitalized.

Self-confidence is one of the most crucial areas of change for empowerment, yet it is also one of the most difficult to measure or assess and it is a complex concept relating to both women’s perception of their capabilities and their actual level of skills and capabilities. Regardless of other traditional or cultural backgrounds many disagreement in poor households is due to the low or a meager income of the household. Thus obtaining additional income from the wife will most of the time minimizes domestic violence and bring respect to women .Hence the contribution to the HH income will bring the women to be seen as a capable which previously due to culture and tradition seems impossible.

Most studies have been based on women’s perceptions of how others treat and perceive them, so it is possible that their responses were affected by their own increasing self-esteem and self-confidence as much as by actual changes in the way they were perceived in the community. Some women, however, do cite specific examples of how their interactions in the community have changed and how the improvement in their status is manifested.

Women’s increased economic role is improving their position in society by allowing them to prove their economic capabilities. The indicators couldn’t be measured easily. However even getting greetings from neighborhood, which is not experienced before their access, is considered as an improvement in their livelihood. It has a very high social impression.

Widespread political empowerment is a fairly rare outcome of most development programs. Although microcredit programs offer services and products that can enhance individual women’s abilities to participate effectively in politics, few organizations explicitly seek political mobilization or structure their programs in such a way as to deliberately nurture collective action. Nevertheless, many examples testify that women’s participation in lending centers and groups increases their knowledge of political parties, processes, and channels of influence.

Even though as it has been indicated empowerment is an all rounded phenomena, the paper’s main focus will be economic empowerment of women. Thus women oriented development programmes can have tremendous impact on the empowerment process if their products and services take these structures into account.

2.1 Economic empowerment

The WB reports that societies with high levels of gender inequality experience higher levels of poverty ,slower economic growth, weak systems of governance, and a lower standard of living (WB2001).Many reports depicts that men contribute an average of 50-68 percent of their income to the general funds of the households, while it is a women earning that is utilized in covering most of the household expenses (Chant,1997).Thus putting working capital in the hands of a woman may have an effect on her economic and social empowerment ,and may also have a positive impact on the health ,education ,and quality of life of the entire family.

Thus, in order for a woman to be empowered, she needs access to the material, human, and social resources necessary to make strategic choices in her life. Not only have women been historically disadvantaged in access to material resources like credit, property, and money, but they have also been excluded from social resources like education or insider knowledge of businesses.

In her study of the Small Enterprise Development Program (SEDP) in Bangladesh, Naila Kabeer found that although empowerment and well-being benefits substantially increased when women controlled their loans and used them for their own income-generating activities, just the act of bringing financial resources to the household in the form of credit was enough to secure at least some benefits for the majority of women in her study. [4]

2.2 Major approaches towards economic empowerment

Looking at the ladder of the composition of business the micro businesses covers the majority with 0 to 20,000 capital while small business with 20,000 to 500,000 capital takes the second place. Thus the major problems for the enrichment of the Micro and small business are lack of financial resources. Especially, Poor women who are mostly engaged in micro business don’t have access to regular banks. Accordingly, various programmes are designed to provide and facilitate financial support to poor women in which MFI ’and saving and credit cooperative are among them. Hence, to alleviate the financial problem of the poor women the role of Micro finance institutions /MFI’s as well as saving and credit cooperatives is a step forward.

The paper first tries to envisages the MFI’s experience in relation to the objective of alleviation of poverty and go straight to the second and the third alternatives which are open for those willing to involve voluntarily in micro and small business

Accordingly, Micro Financing services are regulated by the National Bank of Ethiopia based to proclamation No 40/1996. As per this proclamation to carry out micro financing business, a license from the National Bank of Ethiopia is needed besides forming a company and depositing a minimum of 200,000 Ethiopian Birr (30,000 USD) as the minimum initial capital is a requirement. Hence, clearly as mentioned in the policy document only Institutions those who fulfill the above requirements can engage in micro financing business.

Consequently, till recently with the objective of reducing poverty and vulnerability of poor households through increasing productivity and incomes, diversifying off farm source of incomes, has organized 20 licensed MFI’s operating in rural as well as urban areas of Ethiopia. Its main strategies involve community and participatory approaches which encourages the participation of women, promote saving mobilization and emphasize on long term sustainability. Thus, in Addis Ababa alone seven MFIs are functioning among which 50 % of the beneficiaries are women. As Jennifer (2002) indicated major function and interventions of MFI is based on group based lending promoting compulsory and voluntary saving.

Are MFI’s the solution for the economic empowerment of women?

MFI’s have played a significant role in the countries economy by addressing the financial needs of the poor both in rural as well as urban areas. Many beneficiaries livelihood has been changed through the intervention of these institutions. The existing MFIs are addressing more than 500,000 members in rural as well as urban areas of the country (2002).Thus with respect to gender urban based programmes reach a large proportion of women who comprise from 60 to 85 percent of all clients (Jennifer 2002)

However, several studies and the experiences of a number of MFIs have shown that simply putting financial resources in the hands of poor women is not enough to bring about empowerment and improved welfare.

There is a critique in today’s international system which entails that MFI’ do not have the ability to reach the “poorest of the poor’’ because most MFI’s clients fall in a band around the poverty line and the extremely poor are rarely reached. Thus it is much more expensive to reach the poorest. If an individual accesses credit, but does not have the financial capability to service that debt, access to loan services and interest rates became an additional burden

Even though the MFI’s in Ethiopia have made all efforts to address the financial needs of the able poor, they have excluded the hard core poor. Because they have used the group lending methodology which screens out the poor (Wolday,2002).

Besides, the products of the MFI are not including other non financial services which are important for the enhancement of the micro business activities in which the clients engaged. Due to this the clients’ activity will be based only on traditional knowledge which limits the capacity of lending to higher degree.

2.3 Cooperatives

Cooperative Society means a society established by individuals on voluntary basis to collectively solve the economic and social problems and to democratically manage the given activity/product for mutual benefit.

Thus cooperative could be organized on saving and credit forms or as a producers cooperative which is based on different product oriented activities.

Accordingly, Based on the specified objectives the paper focuses on the two types of women focused cooperatives.

“Women oriented” saving and credit cooperatives mission is to incorporate women and their families into the economic and financial system through the provision of credit and training, and to strengthen the position of women entrepreneurs with micro-sized businesses. Previously saving and credit programmes in an organized way were operated for a number of years by NGOs. Currently a proclamation No 147/1998 allows cooperatives to function as a saving and credit cooperatives.

Accordingly the financial source of these cooperatives is the saving of the members and in most cases initial grants (seed money) from donor organizations to the cooperative. Thus the saving of the members augments the capital of the cooperative to enrich the loan capacity.

The other alternative is engaging women in micro and small business by organizing them in women groups and injecting working capital and support packages. The organized women groups will be transformed in to producer cooperatives to get legal entity for their sustainability. Thus the provided capital is grant for the women group and the members are expected to benefit from the dividend and the profit obtained out of the micro and small business. This approach is a learning and pilot approach in selected districts of the nine regions and two administrative of the country.

This approach not only provides business training for its clients but offers training in a range of areas including democratic processes and civil society participation designed to encourage women’s empowerment and leadership. In addition to the supports offered to the Women groups in micro business, provides access to information on training and legislative issues and has given women an opportunity to participate in working groups.

In view of that, the indicated alternatives are geared to wards alleviating poverty by focusing on supporting poor women to be engaged in micro and small business to improve the livelihood.

The argument here is, are the products included in the package of the respective alternatives enough to bring about the anticipated transformation?

Hence, the ability of a woman to transform her life through access to financial services depends on many factors—some of them linked to the individual situation and abilities, and others dependent upon the environment and the status of women as a group. Control of capital is only one dimension of the complex and ever-changing process by which the cycles of poverty and powerlessness replicate themselves. Women also face disadvantages in accessing information, social networks, and other resources they need to succeed in business and in life. Only by evaluating the needs of women will an MFI or a saving and credit cooperative is able to maximize its empowerment potential.

Some of the specific problems associated with setting up micro as well as small business include

Lack of managerial capability(e.g low levels of education, training and social preparation)
Lack of capital and collateral for loans and credits
Limited access to raw materials ,product design, technologies and marketing channels
Low productivity resulting from extremely small scale of production or inappropriate equipment
Lack of external assistance particularly in the early stage of the project

Thus, Programs with development objectives can achieve “economies of scope” by “packaging two or more services together to minimize delivery and management support costs and to maximize the variety of benefits for people’s multiple needs and wants.” (Dunford, 2001)

And, in an innovative example of incorporating non financial services in a cost-effective way, programs could invest in client leadership development in return for cost savings as clients take on some of the responsibilities for managing loan repayments and other transactions of their lending groups.

As cases the study briefly sees the three different approaches directly involving on economic empowerment of women and envisages by focusing on the second and third alternatives to address the poverty issue.

3.General profile of the organizations under the study

Addis Ababa like other developing capital cities faces various socio –economic problems. Unemployment is very rampant in which 40% of the dwellers don’t have enough income to live on. Thus 50 % of the population is living under poverty while 1/3 is living in abject poverty which major comprises women.

Currently, the total population of Addis has reached to 4 million in which 50% are women. Various studies indicate that the urban population of Ethiopia is growing mainly due to migration to the city. (solomon, 1993; csa, 1999). For instance, migration to Addis Ababa accounts for over 54 percent of the yearly population growth of the city (central statistical authority, 1999). Whereas, most of the migrants are unskilled and the city doesn’t have economic capacity to absorb. Regarding the social problems women are victims of harmful traditional practices as well as HIV/AIDS. Accordingly, due to the indicated and various reasons their economic status is very low. To this fact, in order to secure their livelihood 60% of them are engaged in petty trading activity.

Based on this fact GOs as well as NGOs are involved in alleviating this increasing problem by utilizing different approaches towards the common goal which is poverty reduction. Thus, among the organizations working with poor women with an objective of enabling poor women to have access to economic resources the study tried to look in to Women development intative project (WDIP),WISE and saving and credit cooperative under the Previous Red barna street children project called as Birhu Yehisanat Beteseb Saving and Credit Cooperative(BYBSCC) . The three organizations are working in Addis Ababa except WDIP which is working all over the country .However for this particular study the WDIP regional project which is functioning in Addis Ababa Administration has been taken.

The following table depicts the brief insight of the organizations under the study.

4. Findings of the study

The respondents of the study are from the 10 sub cities of Addis Ababa in which 23.7 % are from the Nifassilk while2%are from the Bole kifle ketema.

The study tried to look in to the composition of the beneficiaries’ educational and marital status. Accordingly among the beneficiaries of the three organizations included in the study 57,6% are married 11.9% are divorced,17.8 % are widow and 15% are single. Thus, 42 % are women headed households. The average family size of the beneficiaries is 5.5 in which the maximum size lies in the range from 4 to 8 which is 70 %. Regarding the educational status 38% of the respondents have high school and above educational level while 14.4%and 12.7% are illiterate and those who can read and write. This shows that those who are relatively educated to certain level are more privileged to be exposed to get better benefit from the existing opportunities.

The highest percentages of the women were living in a non-reliable source of income before their access to the institutions.

Their major problem before each organization interventions was financial problem. Thus 41 % of the respondent’s major problem was finance while 25% said that they earnings were very low and have a feeling of unemployment since they are not engaged in IGA or on regular jobs.

The study has tried to see the previous source of income of the targets before they joined the programmes

Source of income	Total number	%
Earnings from petty trade	32	27.1
Husbands income	33	28
From both	13	11
Other source	40	33.9
Total	118	100

Among the 118 respondents 62.7% had previous experience in petty trading while 37.3% have no experience. For those who have experience the source of income has been 35.6% family and for the rest local money lenders and earning from casuals work and others

This shows that in a family with a low income the obtained money to be engaged in the business is very meager. That is the major reason for the involvement of the women in the petty trading which needs only a minimal amount of money. The money obtained from the local money lender has an exorbitant interest which is not viable to sustain the business.

The following part deals on the situation envisaged after the intervention of the organizations on the existing as well as on new commenced micro business where the respondents involved.

Accordingly among those who were involved in small petty trading activities before the intervention 61% have said that they have diversified in which the main cause for the diversification is the support of the respective organizations.

All of the organizations have provided working capital to the respondent’s .However the module of the provision is different. Regarding WISE and BYBSCC, the working capital is channeled on individual bases in the form of Loan while regarding WDIP it has been channeled as a grant on group bases. Thus the working capital of the former organizations is provided to the groups through the cooperative so the money is grant or seed capital to the cooperative.

For comparison the detail additional support of the three organizations has been indicated as follows

Both WISE and WDIP have a requirement of providing training to the beneficiaries. While in the BYBSC case behind providing the working capital to the group or the cooperative, business related training to the members is not provided

Type of support	WISE	WDIP	BYBSCC
training	1
Working capital	-	7	19
Both	39	51	1
Total	40	58	20

The type of the trainings provided to WISE targets is on Basic business skills (BBS) and business planning 93% of the respondents took both and the rest took only BBS. While for WDIP targets grass root management training (GMT) is compulsory and 15 % took additionally BBS. The indicated trainings are structured to illiterate women in a presentable way. The trainings are composed of leadership skills, financial management marketing, group dynamics etc.

Besides, the respondents were requested what remains to enhance their business. Accordingly, from the beneficiaries of WISE 17.5% have said that the support provided is enough which implies the confidence in their capacity to run their business. This hasn’t been visualized from the two organized groups.17% of WDIP and 10% of WISE respondents need Business advice which is not mentioned in the case of BYBSCC .While in the case of WDIP 51%of the respondents demanded skill trainings which is not reflected in the case of the others. While, in the case of BYBSCC 35%demanded group business. This is due to the benefit obtained out of the group business such as working places, trainings etc

Thus the money provided to the respondents relatively seems enough based on the response of the respondents. However regarding BYBSCC capital amount is not enough. They emphasized on the increment of the loan size limit (3000 birr) in order to satisfy their need. All in all36% of them said that it is not enough which is not small number.

The respondents were also asked if the working capital for the micro and small business is enough to run their IGA and responded as follows

Name of the organization	YES		NO
Name of the organization	No	%	No	%
WISE	26	65	14	35
WDIP	41	71	17	29
BYBSCC	9	45	11	55
	76	64	42	36

The study has also envisaged the activities of respondents to see the impact on the diversification of the activities after getting the support .

The variations of the activities depend on the amount of money they obtained as well as the kind of support provided by the institutions. Except for WDIP targets who are involved in restaurant the other activity are relatively the same. Activities such as local drink and fuel wood selling are not seen in the case of WDIP. Activities such as handicraft and cloth selling are not practiced in the BYBSCC. While in WDIP business involving alcohol drinks and engaging in contraband business is not allowed. Otherwise except the scale of the business, types of the activities are almost identical.

Type of activity	WISE	WDIP	BYBSCC	T.No	%
Baltina	6	31	2	39	33
Injera	9	2	5	16	13.5
cattle	3

	WDIP	WISE	BYBSCC
Objective	To enhance the social and economic welfare of poor households through increased productivity of women ,and to enhance awareness on important development issues	To realize sustainable livelihoods among poor self employed women through Promotion of income Creation and security of employment Promotion and protection of rights Promotion of empowerment	To enhance the family income by involving the street children mother in IGAs
Module of business	Organized women in groups Group managed business	Organized women in a saving and credit cooperative. Individual business	Organizes the beneficiaries in a cooperative Individual business
Area of intervention	All sub cities except Nifas silk Lafeto	Three sub cities (Nifas silk lafeto, Kirkos, Akakai kality)	Arada and kirkos sub cities
Targets	Resource poor women	Poor women	Poor street children mothers
Types of support	Finance support Training (GMT) Awareness raising sessions on six thematic areas	Loan Training (well developed training center providing TOT on small business dev’t) Health education and insurance (IDIR)	Financial support to the cooperative and Loan Training to executives of the cooperative
Number of beneficiaries	700	More than 400	113
Type of organization	Governmental project	Local NGO organizing women in saving and credit cooperatives	Initially supported by International NGO Saving and credit cooperative (managed by the women)
Source of fund	WB loan, Italian grant Gov’t matching fund and contribution of the members	Action Aid Ethiopia and savings of the members	Grant from Redd Barana Ethiopia to the cooperative and saving of the members