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Women's Small Businesses Compete for Grants BOLIVIA - National "Women Against Poverty" Competition,
The twelve women's groups who were finalists in the "Women Against Poverty" competition wanted to make a radical change in their lives, and they did.
Seventy-eight proposals were received and evaluated on the basis of five comprehensive development criteria: financial, physical, social, human, and natural capital. Of these, twelve were selected. Participants made written presentations of their business ventures according to a predefined format. Points were awarded for including photographs, contracts, minutes, publications and other documentation. Participants in the selected groups shared their production and marketing experiences with the panel. The women, shy and overwhelmed at first, became as fierce as lionesses protecting their young when it was time for them to defend their projects, explain their needs and describe their problems. Some made their presentations in Quechua, others in Aymara, Guarani or Spanish. Language did not matter. There they stood - in the middle of the room - with their maps, models, photographs and samples, nervous and perspiring but with one clear goal: to communicate their courage to us and explain why they wanted to win. "Setting up our business has not been easy. I have been criticized and discriminated against by men, but the criticism has helped us learn and move forward." – Doña Petrona Flores, Women Entrepreneurs Group of Moyapampa (Bolivia) - 1st Prize of US$2,000. "We have medicines for rheumatism, and heart, kidney, and gall bladder
problems; anything that ails you. We don't sell medicine, WE SELL
HEALTH." – The Natural Medicines Group – 2nd Prize of US$1,400. "Our lives were very hard. We didn't have enough money and we didn't know how to sell our alpaca and fibre products." - Women Entrepreneurs Group of Lachuani-Muruqarq, (Bolivia) – 3rd Prize of US$600. The women owning the rural bakery, who walk seven hours to buy flour and other ingredients to make their bread, and who have access to water just once a week because their community lacks water, were not among the first three prizewinners. But these women were already winners. They were able to rise out of severe poverty; they learned to organize themselves, obtain training, overcome their shyness and work as a team, thereby improving their families' living standards. Now that their business is going so well, they would like to see it grow even more over the next five years. The youngest woman in the group came over and thanked us "for being so kind and respectful". PERU – Sierra Sur Project: Creation of the First Local Committee for Resource Allocation (CLAR), 27 September 2005, Chivay CLAR is a committee that allocates resources from IFAD's Sierra Sur Project. It functions as follows: people come up with ideas, proposals, or marketing plans, the project reviews the material and sends it on to the committee, which is composed of ministers, mayors, entrepreneurs, farmers, NGOs, and the project secretary. People representing their organizations stand before the panel in public and present their proposals on a blackboard, by role playing or by other means, and answer questions. This is how they obtain financing for their proposal from the project. CLAR may also grant prizes to organizations, as was the case with the competition "Women fighting against poverty", held in Cochabamba (Bolivia), described above. Competitions have now been held for several years and have been enriched through previous experiences. The colleagues of the Sierra Sur Project broadcast these events by radio, reaching hundreds of people. There is much to listen to, to learn and improve. In this way IFAD projects create a framework in which grants are awarded without disclosing to whom, within a democratic and socially accepted context involving the municipality and other individuals. The CLAR of the Sierra Sur Project was established in the Municipality of Chivay, in a public, transparent way. There were about 250 participants, composed of citizens, civil society representatives and state institutions. Twenty proposals for the creation of the new enterprises were presented, and fifteen of them were selected. These initiatives will obtain technical assistance that will benefit 331 families. Four proposals concerning local investments were also approved, for the benefit of 3,700 families. Members of CLAR achieved a high level of participation and their
questions were qualified and well formulated. The participants expressed
satisfaction for the way their proposals were evaluated in a democratic,
transparent and innovative way. The MARENASS project, and subsequently the CORREDOR project, used competitive methods to allocate resources by means of contests and competitions. The objective of these competitions, which are organized on an individual, group, or inter-community level, are: to introduce results-based competition and competitiveness; to foster the adoption and emulation of new practices; to mobilize local resources; and to promote group activities and encourage cohesion. The competitions are organized in various ways: around thematic areas (rehabilitation and construction of terraces, for instance); for individuals or groups; at the community or inter-community level; or for specific groups. In addition, these competitions help to highlight the benefits of hiring services directly and provide a means for a precise evaluation of service quality. They ensure that the benefit derived from contracting technical assistance is evident, palpable and made public; this is reflected by an expansion in demand. Group competitions foster collaboration among peers (the transfer of knowledge and practices), which in turn benefits the whole community. In order to win a competition (not only for the award but, more importantly, for the prestige), participants invest their own resources and efforts, striving to maximize the impact of technical assistance, with consequent higher returns. Contests are a means of mobilizing small farmers' resources and making better use of services. There is a strong involvement and sense of ownership in these competitions: the communities select the panel themselves, settle conflicts, decide on deadlines and prizes, organize ceremonies, and administer the resources earmarked for awards. Cash awards are significantly lower than the amounts invested by small farmers. Families and communities invest their own money to compete with their neighbours in order to see who is able to implement the set of selected practices most efficiently. Organizations compete among themselves to demonstrate which one is best in managing the full set of resources.
The groups of women with successful businesses are a living proof
of how a woman can change if she wants to, and how important it is
to encourage, recognize and value her efforts. Initiatives such as those described above are easily incorporated into the framework of projects aimed at encouraging small entrepreneurs (women and men) to increase product quality and quantity, thereby improving their living standards. Small-scale initiatives with a guaranteed positive outcome could spread rapidly, and therefore play an active role in the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. Source: IFAD |
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The
objective of the competition financed by IFAD, the German Agency for
Technical Development (GTZ), and the Canadian Centre for International
Studies and Cooperation (CECI), was to encourage women to develop
their microenterprises by providing them with financial support and
technical assistance. Women face administrative, economic, organizational
and social obstacles as well as being hindered by husbands who often
do not understand their wives' "sudden and unreasonable" desire to
learn. 
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