Chapter 4: The Dire Dawa Urban Development Programme (Ethiopia)¹²

4.1 Background
4.2 The training
4.3 The women and the impact of the training on their lives
4.4 Benefits and constraints
4.5 Conclusions

¹² Exchange rate (1998) 12 birr = £1 sterling

4.1 Background

The ACORD programme in Dire Dawa had been running for over three years (since May 1994) at the time the research started. It is still running and is funded by ACORD UK through its regional office in Addis Ababa. Its overall purpose is to work with community organisations and structures, particularly groups of women, to address the needs and improve the condition of the poor within the community.

Dire Dawa lies in the east of the country. With the construction of the Addis Ababa -Djibouti railway completed in 1902, the town developed into a major trading centre and witnessed the influx of different ethnic groups. With this expansion came a reputation for contraband trade, especially in chat (a mildly narcotic leaf that people in the region chew), electrical goods and clothing. This trade moves across the nearby frontiers with Djibouti and Somalia. Today, Dire Dawa's population of approximately 200,000 is made up of three main ethnic groups, these being Amhara (35%), Oromo (33%) and Somali (17%), and a number of smaller groups. The Amhara are Christian while the Oromo and Somali are Muslim. At the time of the research (late 1997 to mid 1998), the economy of Dire Dawa was in decline due to the effects of the border conflict with Somalia, the impact of structural adjustment on the economy nationally and the lack of investment stemming from uncertainty in relation to the town's administrative status. In addition, the once budding contraband trade had been adversely affected by a recent government clampdown. Unemployment and poverty were widespread in the town, especially following recent large-scale army demobilisation and the closure of some factories in the area.

According to a baseline survey carried out by ACORD at the start of the project in 1994, overall only 28% of the population of Dire Dawa were working in formal employment, whilst the large majority (72%) were engaged in informal sector activities. More women than men were employed in the formal sector (55% versus 45% respectively), mostly in the factories surrounding the town. However, women were more likely to be in low-status, poorly paid jobs: the survey found that men's overall share of public sector wages was 88% compared with 12% for women. In the informal sector, where the majority of those working are to be found, the main income-generating activities are selling firewood and injera-making (the local bread) for women, transport and stone-crushing for men. The latter are considerably more lucrative than the activities engaged in by women. The proportion of female-headed households in Dire Dawa according to the 1994 survey was unusually high: an estimated 32% of households in the town were headed by women and these were disproportionately represented among the poor.

Hence, the ACORD programme was operating at the time of the study against a background of economic decline. The focus of its work in Dire Dawa was on supporting the most vulnerable and those living in the worst conditions, e.g. in slum areas where piped water is in short supply, diseases spread through a lack of hygiene, where there is no garbage collection and little sanitation. It sought to provide this support primarily through community-based organisations (CBOs). It is estimated that roughly half the adult population of Dire Dawa belongs to one or more CBOs, a remarkably high figure. CBOs vary widely in terms of size and assets, ranging from the smallest with fewer than 20 members and virtually no assets to the largest with several thousand members and significant assets. The former tend to be female-dominated, while the latter tend to be male-dominated.

The majority of CBOs have a social function and act as a sort of insurance policy: in return for a monthly contribution, CBO members receive services to cover traditional social and family obligations such as food and refreshments at funeral and marriage ceremonies, the loan of tents, furniture, utensils and other equipment and the provision of voluntary labour to assist with preparations for such events. The quality and range of services provided vary according to individual CBO capacity, contribution size, and other factors. The ACORD programme has achieved considerable success in transforming CBOs from providing traditional, chiefly socially oriented activities ID providing credit, savings and income-generation opportunities (Howes 1998).

The principal components of ACORD's programme are:

1. CBO grants for income-generation/micro-enterprise projects and/or for social-infrastructural projects aimed at tackling needs identified by the community.

2. Joint projects developed in collaboration with other agencies and community or government organisations intended to meet the needs of poor people not able to benefit from CBO grants.

3. Training to pro vide new skills and to upgrade existing skills with a view to improving people's management of their resources.

4. Linkages with local institutions, NGOs and donor agencies in order to maximise coordination of development efforts in the town.

5. Research aimed at improving the programme's knowledge of the practical and strategic needs of vulnerable groups and documenting the programme's experience of working with community groups.

4.2 The training

4.2.1 Entrepreneurship training

The training component is an integral part of the programme strategy in that it aims to strengthen the existing functioning of CBOs and to aid them to move to their new role as providers of credit and savings schemes. Prior to grant disbursement, all CBOs are required to undergo training in this area. ACORD provides a range of types of training. Some such as gender, family planning, HIV/AIDS awareness, environment, and sanitation and health are aimed at a wide audience and are intended to increase awareness of social concerns affecting community life in general. Others are designed to support micro-enterprise development such as savings and credit, organisational management and bookkeeping, poultry production and entrepreneurship. Training needs are identified on the basis of discussions with CBO members, other community representatives, as well as staff observations. While some areas of training such as savings and credit, organisational management and book-keeping, entrepreneurship, family planning and gender have remained constant since the programme's inception, others have been added or dropped based on demand and/or training capacity and the availability of trainers. In all, 975 women and 657 men (a total of 1632) received training from ACORD in the three year period 1995-7.

The higher figure of women trained is accounted for by ACORD's policy of providing at least 50 percent of training support to women and by the higher number of female CBOs supported by ACORD. The policy of prioritising women was applied when it was found that in mixed CBOs men were more likely to put themselves forward for training and women tended to shrink from taking up such opportunities due to lack of confidence, often linked to their lower literacy levels. It appears that women still shy away from training and need more active encouragement than men to be convinced of their ability to benefit.

The programme's training activities include both formal training sessions and informal discussions and meetings with community members. Informal business advice is also given to less successful clients (defaulters) during consultations, when they are encouraged to explain their problems and advised as to how to improve their business. Most training sessions are conducted in collaboration with local institutions, such as the Dire Dawa Family Planning Bureau, the Health Bureau and the Bureau of Agriculture. However, ACORD staff are also increasingly involved in direct training provision (in direct contrast to the Port Sudan programme, also funded by ACORD). This study only investigated one of the nine types of training offered, this being what the programme termed 'entrepreneurship training'.

The researcher, Kibra Kebede, interviewed the Group 1 women shortly before the three day training took place in November 1997, using the baseline schedule to gather information about their socio-economic circumstances and family status, as explained in chapter 3. She subsequently interviewed them three times, at two-monthly intervals terminating in June 1998. She interviewed the Group 2 women, who had been trained earlier (in April 1997) in October 1997 and again in June 1998.

4.2.1 Entrepreneurship training

This training was offered only to members of CBOs supported by ACORD. During the phase of the programme covered by the field work for this study, the target was to provide training to 600 men and women, to be trained in two phases of ten rounds each, with a maximum of 30 participants in each course. Each phase covered one month. ¹³ The training followed by the women who participated in the study came within the first phase. Both men and women were eligible for training but priority was given to women. The courses which these women attended took place in the hall of the Dire Dawa branch of the Development Bank of Ethiopia. Attendance was for seven hours per day for three days; in the November course, from which the Group 1 women were drawn, there were 20 participants, consisting of 13 women and seven men. The trainer was the male head of the trade promotion department of the Dire Dawa Chamber of Commerce. He was assisted by a facilitator who was an ACORD staff member. The Group 2 women had attended an earlier course in April 1997.

¹³ Remarkably, the course that the Group 1 women were part of was a rolling programme of end-on three day courses, which offered no breaks at all for the trainer, a government official who taught the courses during his annual leave!

· those who have access to credit but do not use it
· those who are expected not to be successful in business
· those who have been in business for some time but have failed to show success.

The objectives of the training were: to provide participants with an assessment of their entrepreneurial potential, to strengthen their capacity to engage in profitable business, to strengthen their self-confidence and to provide them with skills and advice relating to business planning and funding sources (Teklu 1997).

Training needs for this programme were identified by ACORD staff, external evaluators and leaders and members of the CBOs concerned. Course content was developed jointly by ACORD's training officer and gender officer, and the trainer. Although the participants themselves were not involved in the planning of the course, its participatory nature meant that it was adapted to a certain extent to meet their needs as expressed at the time. An informal training element also existed within the programme in that women who accessed credit through their CBO may be offered advice on how to improve their business performance, but this was limited in scale and not planned.

Specific topics covered by the course were:

· business creation
· business plan
· market research
· sales forecasting, sales approach and competitors
· cash flow forecasting
· action planning
· women and trade.

The trainer carried out his own study of the first phase of the training programme (September-October 1997), which revealed that 76% of the participants were female, 22% were illiterate (almost all women) and they were involved in very low levels of business, e.g. retailing vegetables, baking injera (a local flat bread) and selling drinks.

According to the trainer, during the three-day course the following training methods were used:

· lecturing
· whole group and/or small group discussion
· problem solving (e.g. how to forecast sales on an item, how to calculate profit and loss
· case studies (of successful small businesses)
· demonstrations (e.g. advertising a product)
· conducting a business activity (as described below).

The ACORD training officer anticipated that, as a result of the training, the women would move their existing businesses into profit or start new more profitable ventures; they would improve their 'vision of their future life', reinforce the business skills they already had, share their experiences with others and, for those who were literate, start recording profit and loss. Once they were more profitable in their businesses, their standard of living would improve, which would encourage them to take more credit to invest in profitable ventures.

The researcher observed five separate training sessions. These included the following activities:

· a group productive activity in which the participants displayed goods for sale and devised ways of advertising them

· market assessment in which they identified a profitable venture and planned how much to produce, at what price etc

· developing a long term plan and breaking it down into sections

· evaluating the businesses initiated during the practical work so as to identify strengths and weaknesses

· discussing one's vision for productive work.

Outside this group activity, the training was largely of a formal nature and consisted of lecturing interspersed with a large amount of lively discussion (which the few male participants tended to dominate). The trainer was aided only by flipcharts and a whiteboard on which he wrote the main points and expected the trainees to copy (those who were illiterate obviously could not). There was no additional equipment or resources.

The researcher's observation was that the course had largely met its objectives - the participants had acquired relevant skills and learnt to evaluate their businesses critically. They also appeared motivated to develop good businesses and optimistic that they could be successful. They saw the training as important in this respect. As the researcher wrote very aptly:

these people enter productive activities in a haphazard, unplanned way, for survival purposes. Usually these are activities where there is a lot of competition and little profit. Training can help them break this vicious circle of poverty.

She noted that the men interrupted the trainer more frequently with questions and during discussions they talked more than the women. The women rarely asked questions through lack of confidence; interestingly, however, they would answer the trainers' questions more quickly than the men as they saw the immediate relevance to their own experiences. She also noted that both the training staff and the women themselves were of the opinion that mixed training in business was preferable to training for women only, because in the real market women have to deal with men, both as customers and competitors.

It is important to note that several women commented in the later interviews on the 'empowering' effect of attending formal training for the first time in their life (for one it was the first time that she knew 'what a lesson was like') and in a prestigious venue (a government office).¹⁴ One woman who had never attended school said:

I had no [previous] chance to attend any form of training. I was allowed to sit and attend a skill training and asked my opinion about issues. It was a great time for me.

¹⁴ It is worth pointing out that only two of the ten Group 1 women had received any prior business-related training (on credit and savings scheme management and organisational management from ACORD). In contrast, all of the Group 2 women had already attended some other course provided by ACORD, usually savings and credit or bookkeeping. Some had attended a one day course on family planning, and one had attended a course on organisational management (as a CBO official).

However, as the findings of the study demonstrate, external circumstances affect the extent to which participants of such training are able to use the skills acquired successfully. In the Dire Dawa context, these included: a local economy in decline, lack of a legal market area, unclear government policy on small scale business and the quick turnover from contraband trade which affected the viability of legal small businesses. Women face the additional constraints of too many domestic responsibilities, lack of time and physical exhaustion. They may face problems in even acquiring skills in the first place, such as lack of confidence, illiteracy (illiterate women may forget because they cannot take notes), lack of vision and resistance from male relatives.

4.3 The women and the impact of the training on their lives

4.3.1 The Group 1 women
4.3.2 Findings
4.3.3 The Group 2 women

The 20 women who took part in the study (ten in Group 1 and ten in Group 2) could be classified as poor, with two exceptions in Group 1 and one in Group 2. According to Howes (1998), being 'poor' in Dire Dawa indicates individual incomes of around 100 birr (£8.30) a month from casual labour or selling water or firewood, or a small business turnover of 150-300 birr (£12.50-£25) a month. Typically the poor would live in one room houses rented from the district government. Two of the women in Group 1 and one in Group 2 could be classified as being from 'middle class' families, where incomes would be in the region of 300-500 birr (£25-£42) and small business turnover up to 1000 birr (£830) per month. Typically, they would rent two to three room houses.

4.3.1 The Group 1 women

Some of the women in this study had had very hard lives and unhappy childhoods, as the following narrative will show. The main sample often women (Group 1), who were interviewed and observed at regular intervals, were fairly young, with half the women being under 30. Five were married, three divorced (and current heads of their household), one separated and one single (the youngest, aged 22). Three of the women had never been to school, the remainder had had between five and 12 years of schooling. Most of the women had children dependent on them. All were currently engaged in some form of economic activity at the time of the training and all held loans from their local CBO, ranging in size from 300 birr to 1000 birr (£25-83) and at interest rates ranging from 8-16 percent (the average rate being 10 percent). Repayment usually had to be made within a period of ten months. It is important to note that all the loans had been taken out prior to the November training, with the earliest starting in April of that year. This would indicate that whatever changes they made to their business subsequent to the training were more likely to be the result of the training than of the credit - or more accurately, the result of the impact of the training on the way the credit was used.

The first follow-up interview with the Group 1 women took place in January 1998, six to eight weeks after the training. At that time, all of the women had experienced some increase in income, albeit very small in some cases, and eight of them showed evidence of having used some of the skills acquired during the training. The data clearly document the ways in which these skills were used as well as the impact on their incomes and on their status in the home and the community. Three women in particular had adopted a completely new approach to their business as an immediate result of the training and were being successful, even at the time of the first follow-up visit; another two had developed significant new businesses with considerable potential for profit by the time of the second visit. The remaining five had experienced varying levels of success and failure.

There follows a brief description of each of these women and the impact the training had on them as they struggled to make a living in an unstable market characterised by low purchasing power, product saturation, high inflation and seasonal swings in demand. First, the three women who had adopted a new approach. These were: Zinash, Tsehay and Etsehiwot.

Zinash was 35 (although she looked much older) and had had five years of primary schooling. She had had a hard life. She came from a farming family and was married at 12 to a local farmer. Life was difficult:

I was doing the work in my house and the house of my in-laws. In addition, I had to do agricultural work in the field. Although I worked hard, my husband and my in-laws were not happy with my performance. My husband always shouted at me and beat me. After five difficult years my family requested a divorce.

At first, like many in the area who were laid off, she did not know what to do but after a few weeks her family and friends advised her to start an income generating activity. She developed a range of activities. She started by selling small retail items and preparing tea. She then started preparing and selling tella, a local beer, but this is very time-consuming, requires a large space to prepare it in and makes a marginal profit.

After the training in November 1997, she used the newly acquired skill of market research to conduct her own market survey and found that injera (a local bread) and areqe (a local alcohol) were in short supply. Baking injera also requires a great deal of time but there is a market for it among women who work outside the home and have no time to prepare it themselves. Although Zinash knew that as a productive activity which was an extension of domestic work it was prone to market saturation, she decided to try it while the market was favourable. Baking takes about 5-6 hours with a clay oven. She stopped selling other kinds of bread and preparing tea, but continued to sell small retail items such as sugar and tea, which she kept in a carton. She experienced a considerable increase in income as a result of this switch and was soon able to build an additional room to her house, part of which served as a 'kiosk' for selling her goods. By the time of the researcher's second visit, she had bought an electric pan, which allowed her to work faster. She had also got better at baking injera and was now able to sell each bread for ten cents less than her competitors, so she had plenty of customers. She claimed to have used business planning and market survey in doing this; by assessing customer demand for injera and her capacity to produce and to sell at a lower price, she was doing well. During the researcher's second and third visits, her sales of injera reached a peak, generating 50 birr (£4) income every four days. Once her monthly electricity bill had been paid, this allowed her about 50 birr per month profit. She kept this in a sealed container along with profit from the other sales of small retail items.

Alongside baking and selling injera which she did in the mornings, she sold areqe in her house in the evenings. Men from the neighbourhood who had been chewing chat (local tobacco) all afternoon would come to her house to drink areqe. Before their arrival at 6 pm, Zinash would clear everything but the furniture out of her house and make it ready for her customers. She sold them processed areqe that she bought in bulk and she used the small profit to buy household items. The remainder was kept in the sealed tin. Her total monthly profit from all her sales was around 150-200 birr.

By the time of the third visit, she had employed a woman to bake for her and another woman to transport the injera to two customers who bought wholesale from her. She was very proud of this, as it was the first time she had hired anyone. She said she had earned respect from her neighbours for helping other poor women. This also allowed her some leisure time, to rest, attend CBO meetings and to socialise with relatives and neighbours. However, the sale of injera had declined and she was compensating for this by expanding the items for sale in her kiosk. The shop now remained open all day, with her sister helping her. Her long term plan was to expand the shop by reinvesting the income it was generating, which she kept separately. She had also taken out a loan from her local CBO which allowed her to buy a set of scales for weighing out flour, sugar etc. Overall she had a slight increase in income. By the end of the research period, she was happy and confident. Her brother had also now found a job as a driver. However, she expressed concern for her old age as she had no child and this concern may have in part driven her to work hard at building up her business.

Tsehay was 35, with five years of primary education. She had been brought up in a farming family in the countryside, married at nine and divorced at 15. The hardship of country life had persuaded her to ask for a divorce and move to the town where she became a housemaid. She was at that time able to take shares in a chat selling company. This continues to earn her 500 birr (£42) per month in dividend. She later started co-habiting with another man but he abandoned her and their daughter after seven years, as she told the researcher:

I lived with my former 'husband' for years. We lived happily and I do not remember a moment when we exchanged strong words. However, the last time I visited my parents I came back to find an empty house. He took all the valuable items from the house, TV, fridge, tape recorder, cupboard, table and chairs. I entered an empty house. All these items were purchased mainly from my income. After some time I heard that he married another woman. This made me very depressed. Finally I managed to withstand this and I am working hard to convince myself that I could live better without a husband.

After the training, she carried out a market survey (as she had learnt during the course) and had decided to convert her bar to a canteen selling three meals a day. She hired a man in addition to the two women already employed to help her, and her income increased significantly. By the time of the second follow-up visit she had rented a second canteen and had five workers instead of three. Her net monthly income when all expenses had been paid was 150-200 birr (£12.50-£16.70). As most of her customers were Orthodox Christians, she kept strictly to the religious requirements for food during fasting periods. She cooked fasting food every Wednesday and Friday and daily throughout the long fasting period. Fasting food comprises pulses and vegetables while non-fasting food is mainly animal products such as meat and eggs.

When the researcher asked her how she managed to open a second canteen only four months after the training, she replied that she served good quality food but at a lower price than in other restaurants in the neighbourhood. For those who could not afford a full breakfast, she also served smaller portions at a lower price. She claimed to practise market research and customer attraction continuously by asking customers what food they would like and what they thought of the food she offered. She paid particular attention to the quality and quantity of the food, the cleanliness of the premises and the behaviour of the workers towards the customers. She would also note who her customers were, how much they ordered and what they ordered. On this basis she was able to adjust her preparations. She would buy meat and vegetables daily in the market and cook enough for both canteens, sending what was required from the one to the other. The researcher observed her making a short term plan of how much to cook for how many customers over the following week. She had also drawn up a long term plan, which included renting more premises. By the time of the third visit, which was a slack period after the festival when prices had also risen a great deal, she had reduced her workers from five to four, but was managing to maintain her income level.

The researcher noticed how fast she was in her work, doing all the cooking, washing and cleaning despite having several workers on the premises. She was a very energetic person with a pleasant personality. She had many friends, was sociable to everyone and was well respected in the community. These features no doubt contributed to her success. She was also chair of her local CBO, which she was very proud of as such positions are usually occupied by men, and she was secretary of another. Her main concern was the lack of security of her business. Both her canteens were rented from landlords who might increase the rent when they saw how successful she was or might even take the premises back to run the canteen themselves. She had applied to the district administration to allow her to rent a government house for her business.

Etsehiwot was the youngest of the group (22 years old) and the only one who had not been married. She came from a relatively well off family; her mother owned her own house and received a monthly pension. Her two brothers owned a big garage next to the house and they also worked as drivers. Etsehiwot was obliged to drop out of secondary school before completing the 12^th grade when her father became sick and she had to nurse him. She continued her studies through evening classes. When her father died in 1992, she found that she had nothing to do in the day-time and so, without telling her family, she purchased a few retail items like sugar, coffee, sweets and soap and starting selling them in a carton in front of the house. Her family were very shocked when they found out what she was doing and ordered her to stop. However, in the face of her strong indignation, they allowed her to continue for a trial period of a month and when they saw that she was doing well, they allowed her to continue. At the time of the study, she was selling from a small shop or 'kiosk' three square metres in size, attached to the main house. She worked there full-time, opening at 6 a.m. and continuing for 13-14 hours until the evening. She sold items like flour, lentils, rice, cooking oil, soft drinks and beer, which she bought in bulk. She worked seven days a week, and travelled twice a week to the central market to buy wholesale.

Compared to the other women in the sample, she was living in a relatively rich neighbourhood offering a potentially more profitable market for her goods. Her brothers' garage also brought rich customers who bought drinks. On a good day (pay days and festivals) her turnover was 300 birr (£25), half that on an average day. After the training, on the basis of some market research (learnt on the course), she moved immediately from selling items in small quantities to selling in bulk, as she calculated that the profit margin was greater. At the same time, the training had given her the idea of starting a canteen to provide breakfasts at her brothers' garage which was next to the house, but as she had no time, she persuaded her sister-in-law to start this. This not only provided her sister-in-law with a good income but provided herself with an outlet for her wholesale goods. By the time of the second visit two months later, in addition to selling wholesale, she had taken over running the canteen in her brothers' garage because her sister-in-law was now selling vegetables, and Etsehiwot was also selling home made bread and tea. Her net daily income had increased from 14-15 to 18 birr (£1.50) per day. She had managed to cut down the time she spent travelling to the wholesale markets as a result of increased capital. She had spent 1850 birr of savings on renovating two rooms in the house and buying a fridge to cool drinks for sale. She currently put aside 100 birr per month as savings, and after meeting the interest on her loan and other expenses, she re-invested the remainder (300-400 birr) in the business. By the end of the research period, her capital was approaching 10,000 birr (£830). She was fortunate that by living with her mother, her consumption expenses were very low and she was able to invest almost all her profits in her business.

By the time of the third visit, she had stopped cooking and selling breakfasts because the workload was too great for her. Now that prices had gone up in Dire Dawa, and the festive season was over, retailing was less profitable. However, she had started selling cooking oil imported by a friend from Djibouti, which generated 25-28 birr profit per day. As this was the slack season, she was spending time studying the market to identify goods which were in demand. She claimed to use market survey and sales forecasting constantly. She assessed seasonal demand, such as cold drinks in hot weather, pulses and cooking oil during the fasting period, and variations between normal days and festival days. Although she regretted not completing her education and being able to look for an office job, she believed she was better off with her business than her friends, most of whom were unemployed. She and her sister-in-law both considered themselves to be successful business women. The household had also changed its attitude towards their work. She herself helped her two brothers with their accounts and acted as a cashier for them; this had helped them to increase their income slightly.

The researcher commented that, as she was applying the skills learnt, she had the edge on other merchants. She continued however, like the other women, to have difficulties in differentiating between working capital, turnover and net profit. She was also aware that in her culture it was important for her to get married, and she was worried that by spending all her time on her business, she did not have time to meet people and find a man to marry. She was in a relatively privileged position compared to the other women in that she always had her family to fall back on if her business failed.

The two women who had developed significant new businesses at the time of the second visit, with considerable potential for profit, were Meriem and Hiwot. Meriem, however, became seriously ill and had to abandon her new venture.

Meriem was aged 27, married with three young children. She had had no schooling and was illiterate. She had also had a hard life. Her mother died when she was young and she was brought up by her grandmother in the countryside. The grandmother died when Meriem was 15, so she went to live with an aunt who was a rich merchant. Her aunt made her work excessively hard in the house so that in the end she ran away to Dire Dawa and found work as a housemaid. She got married when she was 18. At the time of the training, she was helping out in her husband's 'kiosk' (a small part of the house) which sold small household items. However, she covered all the household expenses herself from selling roasted kolo (a local snack made from barley) outside the house and from making pleated cloth used in local dresses by a traditional technique. She earned about 19 birr (£1.60) per day. She had taken her loan from the CBO to buy the special stiff paper required for this work. She did not know what her husband did with the income from the shop - despite the fact that the researcher observed her doing all the work in the shop in addition to her own time-consuming work. He was always seen either chewing chat, sleeping or absent!

By the time of the second follow-up visit, she had developed a new business with an initial investment of 300 birr. She would travel to a nearby town to buy charcoal, eggs, butter and milk more cheaply than in Dire Dawa, which she then sold in her husband's shop and to local canteen owners. By consulting with potential clients, she was able to assure them of a regular supply and herself a regular income. She considered that the training had encouraged her to change the nature of her work, and had provided her with the skills to think through a business idea, develop a plan and conduct a market survey. She had started with butter, eggs and maize and after considerable experimentation had finally settled on eggs, butter, milk and charcoal. Although the increase in income was marginal in the early stages (78-88 birr per week), she was confident that there was potential for growth. Her husband had become more supportive now and looked after their children when she went to market. She also felt that she had more social respect and self-confidence, and was happy about being more mobile. However, by the time of the third visit she had fallen sick with TB followed by malaria. She was also pregnant. She had however kept her 1000 birr (£83) from her business to re-invest when she was well again. According to the researcher, she was the most promising of the ten women - despite being illiterate.

Hiwot was aged 23 and married with a young child. She had had 12 years of schooling. Like Etsehiwot, she came from a better off family. When she first got married she was dependent on her husband's income as a peddler, which involved him mainly in selling smuggled goods. Although profitable, it was a high risk activity without a steady income. So, with a loan from her family in 1996, she rented a large house in the local compound of the Electricity Authority to run as a canteen, where she had a steady supply of customers. As she became successful with this, her husband started to help out. In August, she had taken out a loan from her CBO to buy a video deck so that customers could view films for a small charge. A previous loan had been used to expand the canteen. At the time of the baseline survey, her monthly net income was around 200 birr (£16.70). She did not experience any significant increase in income until after the training.

By the time of the researcher's second visit, she had more customers including a contract to provide three meals a day for 27 footballers (the researcher noted that at the time of her previous visit there were only three customers, this time there were 12 plus the footballers). She had employed two more people to work in the canteen and her husband also worked there full-time. He had ceased being a peddlar, having found it difficult to generate an income after his goods were confiscated by the government.

Hiwot said that she had found the skills of business planning, market survey and customer attraction the most useful. She had recorded the number of customers over a two week period and had calculated what she would need in expenditure per month (most regulars pay their bills at the end of the month) and she had also started to save. Her increased business awareness also meant that she had reduced unnecessary expenditure. She was currently making a profit of 2000 birr (£165) per month, ten times her previous income. Although this declined to 1000 birr per month by the time of the third visit, it was still five times that of six months previously. She had been able to buy a second video deck and an electric pan for baking injera, costing over 2000 birr. With 50-70 people watching the video every evening, this brought in a net daily income of 40-50 birr, which was additional to what she earned from serving meals. She was planning to offer a wider range of meals to attract more customers and would like to open a second canteen.

This is an interesting case. Hiwot was the only woman in the group to realise a significantly large increase in income. He husband started working full time in the canteen and acted as cashier. According to the researcher, he was gradually taking over control of the business and at the time of the final visit he was only giving her 100 birr (£8.30) per month pocket money and told her to spend more time with her son. Despite this, Hiwot still considered herself in charge and was proud of the fact that she had created a job for her husband.

Of the remaining five women, two (Enanu and Worknesh) had met with severe misfortune in their business, in that they had both taken out loans to buy horses (one had one horse, the other two) to rent out daily to cart owners. All three horses had died of a local disease. This had left both women in a state of shock.

Enanu was 24 and had had ten years of schooling. She had been psychologically affected by witnessing a mass killing when she was a student. Her husband had left her after four years of marriage, taking all the savings that they had. This included the profits from her work selling grain by the roadside (an illegal activity) which she would buy wholesale. She had built this up slowly into a reasonable business. In May she had taken out the loan to buy two horses and for a short while they generated a good income for her of 15-19 birr per day. Out of this income she had constructed a house with a barn for the horses. However, shortly after the researcher's first follow-up visit, both horses had died. Around the same time, she had to deal with the additional blow of seeing her house demolished by the municipal council because she had constructed it without an official permit. She told the researcher that this was the hardest time of her life. As she had also neglected her grain business while renting out the horses, she had lost her regular customers and it was not easy for her to pick this up again. At the end of the research period, she was making a small income from selling grain in small quantities by the roadside.

Worknesh, who also suffered the misfortune of losing her horse, had like a number of the other women, had a very hard childhood. Aged 28 now and married with two daughters, she had been five years old when her mother died. At six, she had been taken by her drunkard father to work as a maid in Addis Ababa and for ten years he would come once a year to collect her wages. She never again saw her four brothers or visited her home village. She never went to school. Her first husband also proved to be worthless and spent his time on 'secondary' habits such as smoking, drinking and chewing chat. She divorced him and remarried, this time to a man who respected her and cared about her. She ran a small 'kiosk' in their house and then bought the horse with a loan from her CBO which provided her with a good income for the short time it worked for her. Although she was severely affected by its death, by the time of the researcher's second visit she had recovered her confidence and had been able to pick herself up from disaster with considerable success. By applying market research, she calculated that there was a good income to be made from making berbere and shro (two types of sauces). As the price of vegetables had gone up considerably, people were turning to these sauces as a cheaper accompaniment to meat. She had also expanded her small shop. She had become more confident because she realised she was able to get herself out of a crisis. Her husband who belittled her at the time of the horse's death now respected her because she was expanding her new business.

One woman who failed completely to make a profitable business after the training was Tsegereda. She was a 30 year old divorced mother with six years of schooling and a 13 year old son, and was selling home made bread at the time the field work began. She had previously worked in a factory until the aunt with whom she was living was murdered by her (the aunt's) husband, an attack in which she herself was wounded and hospitalised. She then took to selling vegetables which was profitable for a while until too many people became engaged in this activity. So she turned to making home made bread for sale. However, the researcher commented that she longed for an office job and was not motivated or energetic about developing a business. In fact, most of the loan she had taken from the CBO had been spent on visiting her family in the countryside. After the training, she continued selling home made bread but in addition she started recording her income and expenditure. She then realised that she earned about five birr (£0.40) per day net profit, which would be more than she would receive in an office job. This made her change her attitude towards working in the informal sector and at the time of the first follow-up visit, she was confident about developing her productive activities. However, by the time of the second visit she had abandoned selling bread as it was unprofitable during the fasting period and she had turned to basket making; this proved to be even less profitable, and, according to her, was looked down upon as being the work of 'old women'. She had taken to renting out two rooms in her house (which was illegal as it was rented from the district administration) so as to be able to repay the loan to the CBO. Once she was able to access a new loan she would return to selling home made bread.

Another married woman, Etaferahu, who was 37 and had six children, continued to sell bread bought from a wholesaler by the roadside throughout the research period, but with declining confidence in her ability to make a living in the marketplace. She was illiterate and had never been to school. Zewdie, a married woman of 40 with five years of schooling and five grown up children, had started selling sugar, coffee, gelatine and soap from her house just a few days before she received the training. She had used the CBO loan to set herself up in this activity. She was more fortunate than most of the other women in that she was a shareholder in a chat company and received, like Tsehay, a monthly dividend of 500 birr, which was spent on household consumption. Over the period of field work, she continued with her small business without experiencing much increase in income. She did however show some business acumen by converting an old table for table tennis, and making a small income from local children who paid a fee to play.

Although two of these women (Zewdie and Tsegereda) did show some evidence of trying to use the skills acquired during the training, they were unable to move into a new business or expand their existing one, whether due to poor judgement, lack of business acumen or motivation is not clear.

4.3.2 Findings

The field work, and in particular the use of the Matrix, clearly documented a range of benefits experienced by the women as a result of the training, which had a direct impact on their economic activities. At the same time, it documented a range of constraints which served to reduce this impact. The impact of the training on the women's economic activities, as identified by them during each of the researcher's visits, are summarised below, highlighting benefits and constraints.

At the time of the first follow-up visit, all the women were more conscious of the need to engage in market research, to draw up a business plan for a new or expanded venture, and to record daily income and expenditure. All but three women (Enanu, Worknesh and Hiwot) had, subsequent to carrying out some market research, shifted their activities to either diversifying their business (e.g. turning a bar into a canteen), concentrating on selling more profitable items (e.g. injera), or buying in bulk for retail sale (e.g. grain), hence increasing their income. Three women (Zinash, Etsehiwot and Tsehay) had made significant changes as detailed above and been quite successful in increasing their income, while four (Etaferahu, Tsegereda, Meriem and Zewdie) had modified their practice to a certain extent and in so doing had increased their income, albeit marginally. All seven women who had made some changes had experienced increased income and savings. Although Hiwot had made some changes, especially in making the food more attractive for customers, her income had decreased because she worked in a Muslim area and it was the fasting month of Ramadan.

All the women had developed a more positive and more confident attitude towards business, and felt sure that they could generate a better income as a result of applying the skills acquired during the training. Some of the women reported that household members had also changed their attitudes towards the women's work. Three husbands (Eterafu's, Meriem's and Hiwot's) started actively helping, and all expressed pride in what their wives were doing. Etsehiwot, the single woman, also got more active support and encouragement from her family (and her sister-in-law had opened a canteen). These four women considered that their status in the household had increased considerably. Tsehay, who lived with her sister and ten year old daughter, also got help from her sister as her business expanded, and both expressed their pride in her.

According to the researcher, the skills cited as most frequently used were: market research, followed by business planning and customer attraction. All the women had attempted to record income and expenditure but they found it time consuming and difficult. Only one woman, Tsegerada, was recording it regularly and, ironically, she was the least successful of all the ten women over the research period.

Two women, Zinash and Tsehay, felt that their status in the community had increased directly as a result of being more successful in business. Tsehay had been elected to the chair of her CBO, which she attributed directly to her business success. Four women saw no change in status in either the home or the community; these were Enanu, Worknesh, Tsegereda and Hiwot, none of whom had experienced any increase in income at this stage.

By the time of the second visit two months later, seven women had continued to see an increase in income, although in the case of two women this was marginal. These latter were Meriem, who had changed her economic activity completely and was buying fresh produce from a nearby town for sale to regular customers, and Eterafu, who had slightly increased her income by selling bread by the roadside. The other five women were doing well.

Etsehiwot's shop was expanding and she was now selling wholesale. Hiwot's and Tsehay's canteens were also expanding, Hiwot's quite spectacularly, providing her with ten times her previous income. Zinash was doing well baking injera. However, three women had experienced a decline in income: these were Enanu and Worknesh, whose horses had died, and Tsegereda, who had switched from selling bread to selling baskets. Zewdie, who was facing competition from a large shop which had recently opened in the neighbourhood, also experienced a slight decline despite diversifying her activities. Of these ten women, two (Meriem and Zewdie) were showing flexibility in being prepared to change direction if opportunities offered themselves and two others (Etsehiwot and Hiwot) had showed considerable business acumen.

The women appeared to think more carefully before they engaged in new activities, new products to sell, or expansion of the existing business, and to plan their time better, trying to make time for planning and market research, and to socialise and rest. Some husbands and other relatives offered support. Meriem's, Hiwot's and Eterafu's husbands continued to help, while Zewdie's husband, who was retired, also started helping. As Tsehay now had two canteens, her sister was helping. Etsehiwot's family continued to be supportive.

Five of the women who had experienced an increase of income (Meriem, Hiwot, Tsehay, Zinash and Etsehiwot) all considered that their status in the home and/or the community had increased. There was improved nutrition for the family. The other five (Etaferahu, Tsegereda, Enanu, Worknesh and Zewdie) did not perceive an increase in status, and in the case of Tsegereda who was making baskets she saw a decline (making baskets is a last resort, when nothing else is available; it is for old women).

By the time of the third and final visit, two women had continued to see their income increase sustained, despite the depressed market. These were Hiwot and Etsehiwot. Enanu and Worknesh were both recovering from the loss of their horses and starting to make an income again, Enanu from selling grain once more and Worknesh from selling sauces. Worknesh was in particular doing very well, having identified a profitable product. Zinash continued to see a small increase, while Zewdie's income had also started to increase again. She was proud that she was able to survive in the face of competition from much larger merchants. Tsehay's income had stayed the same, as had Tsegerada's and Eterafu's. Meriem's income had declined considerably because she was ill, and she had had to give up her new business indefinitely because of this. Some women had shown flexibility in their response to the volatility of the market by entering new activities or adjusting on-going ones (Tsehay offering meat dishes in her canteens, Worknesh selling berbere and shro, and Etsehiwot importing cooking oil).

Again, the women who reported an increase in income also thought their status and confidence had increased. Others did not report a change, except Tsegereda, who actually reported a decrease because she was making baskets which is considered a very lowly activity. Two women reported that they have more control over the time they gave to their business: Zinash was better organised and employed two people to do a lot of the work and Etsehiwot had stopped selling breakfasts.

Overall in this seven month period, all but two of the women had made use of some of the skills acquired during the training course. Etaferahu (selling bread) and Tsegereda (selling baskets) appeared unable to apply what they had learnt. On each visit, the researcher asked the woman which skills they still remembered from the training, and which they practised, ranking them in order of frequency. The skill of market survey was found to be the most useful and the most practised, i.e. what goods can best be sold in this market, who the buyers are and who the competitors might be. The second most frequently practised was the skill of customer attraction (presenting items attractively), especially by those who sold cooked food and bread, and third came business planning. One woman started recording her income and expenditure at the start of the research period (Tsegereda), with another starting later and also carrying out a sales forecast over a two month period (Hiwot).

4.3.3 The Group 2 women

These ten women had received their training in April 1997, and were interviewed in October 1997 and June 1998. Of the ten, only three made significant changes to their economic activity as a result of the training (one changed location rather than type of activity) and saw a significant improvement in income as a result.

The impact of the training on one woman was immediate, as her account reveals:

Before the training, I had no work. During the training session, the trainer asked us to present our future business plan (what we want to do in future). When replying to the question one of the respondents explained her plan, to sell breakfast. Immediately after returning home before the end of the training session, I went to the market and I bought all the raw materials needed as discussed here and in the morning I prepared and started selling to customers.

The second woman had applied the skills of selection and marketing and had changed the site of her activity (selling berbere, a local sauce) to another town about 200 kms from Dire Dawa. She was making a good profit there and was able to give her mother 100 birr a month to support the family. She was also able to rent a house in this town, returning home only at weekends to buy ingredients and make the preparations.

The third woman, who had been selling home made bread by the roadside which was an unprofitable activity (generating only 2-3 birr income per day), decided to rent a shop and start a new business. She considered that the training had given her the confidence to do this. She had found the skill of market research particularly useful. She had recently added the sale of vegetables to her other retail goods because the profit was good at that time. By the time of the second visit, her net monthly profit was 100 birr. However, she had experienced a set back because she had had 2500 birr stolen. This had obliged her to take out a new loan. However, she was recovering from this loss.

Another woman was able to increase her income, but not so much from changes in her business but from changes in household circumstances. She had got a part-time job in a language school and her sister had taken over running the shop (selling bread and retail items) for her. Another sister had got married and so this was one mouth less to feed. She contributed 50 birr of her salary per month to household expenditure, which released more of the income from the shop for re-investment in the business. She said she had passed on the skills acquired during training to her sister, especially market survey and customer attraction, and continued to help her. However, she wanted to have salaried employment. Of the remaining six women, three did not change their economic activity nor increase their income. One was selling grain by the roadside illegally; she saw the lack of a legal market place and lack of capital as the main constraints to her expanding her business. Another was making tella, a local beverage, operating in a saturated market where women did not compete against each other but took it in turns to produce. Her income had declined. The third was selling berbere (a local sauce) again in a saturated market; this was a time consuming product to make and so expansion was not easy. She said that credit had helped her re-start this business, but the training had had no impact.

Three women stopped their businesses completely. One woman had bought a sewing machine after the training and having carried out some market research had started sewing mattresses and blankets. However, she had to abandon this due to ill-health. Another was also sewing but stopped to become a full-time housewife (no reason was given). Interestingly, however, she said that the training had made her more 'quality-oriented' and she had made changes in her husband's shop to attract customers, making it brighter by replacing the corrugated roof with plastic sheeting and arranging well finished clothes in an attractive way. She advised her husband to concentrate on producing good quality clothes, even at the expense of quantity. The third was selling berbere and shro but had also stopped for reasons of ill-health.

Four of the women said they remembered and still practised some of the skills acquired during training. One other said she remembered some of what was taught but needed follow-up/refresher training. It was clear, however, from a comparison of the two groups, that the researcher's regular visits to the Group 1 women had had an impact in reinforcing the skills acquired because on the occasion of each visit she would ask them which skills they were using and which they found most useful. A few expressed a sense of shame if, when she visited them, they had not been able to apply the skills learnt or to expand their business or increase their profit. This follow-up was lacking with the Group 2 women.

4.4 Benefits and constraints

The benefits to these women from the training are clear. It provided them with some basic business skills, with all but one putting at least one skill into practice. It also provided them with the self-confidence to move into new areas and to take risks. As a consequence of using these new skills, one woman had been able to increase her income dramatically (ten times at one stage) and four others to have a reasonable increase. It was likely that a sixth woman (Meriem) would have started making a good income if she had not fallen ill. Even maintaining a steady income was an achievement during the latter period of research, because inflation, the post-festival slump and increased competition and market saturation made it ever more difficult to survive.

Among the Group 2 women, a similar impact was reported. However, the experience of this group, who were trained earlier, is indicative of the problem of sustainability, both in terms of sustaining growth, and continuing to apply new skills which are important for that growth. Of this group of ten, only six remained in business (one had passed it on to her sister) and of these, only three were relatively successful.

However, one can argue that the lack of sustainable success had more to do with the adverse market conditions than to the training per se. Indeed, without the training the women may well have been worse off. However, it is interesting to note that on the whole the Group 1 women, who saw the researcher in some sense as monitoring them, were more successful than the Group 2 women. This suggests that follow-up support and advice is very important is assisting poor women to sustain their incomes.

The women identified some constraints at the very start of the research, during the baseline survey. These were:

· lack of working capital (half the sample saw this as the most important)
· lack of space for running a business (e.g. for a shop)
· lack of knowledge of the market
· lack of time
· market saturation
· lack of childcare facilities
· uncertain markets or circumstances (eg a house built illegally, rented premises)
· lack of a legal marketplace
· lack of shelter when selling (if it rains).

· lack of rain (which affects the quality and price of grain and fuelwood)

· seasonal variations in income (e.g. in a fasting period those engaged in food production experience reduced incomes)

· relatives (usually female) may have to bear more responsibility for domestic duties and children may be left more on their own

At the time of the final visit, four women continued to complain about having too much work. Only two women in the group had taken active steps to address this: Zinash had employed two women to help her to bake and deliver the injera and Etsehiwot had stopped making breakfasts because she had too much else to do. The vulnerability of individuals and women in particular working in the informal sector, who have nobody to substitute for them, was exemplified by Meriem who fell ill and had to abandon her activities just as she was beginning to do well in a new business. The seasonal fluctuation in the market, with the post-festival period seeing incomes decline, and the economic depression also affected the women's incomes adversely.

It was not possible to assess the extent to which illiteracy might have been a barrier to ensuring sustainable income increases. Of the three women who were illiterate, Meriem had, according to the researcher, the most business potential but she fell ill and had to abandon her new business. Etaferahu saw little success, but Worknesh picked herself up from her disaster after her horse died and was making a living in a new line of business. However, only two women ever tried seriously to record income and expenditure, so in that respect literacy was not used systematically.

4.5 Conclusions

There was no doubt that the training enhanced the entrepreneurship knowledge and skills of the trainees and changed their attitude and approach towards running their own micro-enterprises, and in that respect it met its main objectives. Most of the women were seen to exercise one or more of the skills learnt on the course, with market research being the most commonly used. They all changed their attitude towards their productive work and towards themselves; as a result, their management of their productive work improved in eight out of ten cases in Group 1, and five women experienced sustained income increases. The attitude of their families and the community also showed a positive change.

Although at the end of the field work period, the financial gains for the women were not great and in some cases their incomes had dropped compared to a few months before, it is likely that the training had provided them with skills which would allow them to survive better in depressed markets than other women who had not had the training. In particular, they had learnt to be flexible and to respond to new opportunities and seasonal variations in the market, e.g. fasting periods. The majority of the women studied showed considerable entrepreneurial orientation. Interestingly, though, the greatest potential and gains were shown by those women, all relatively young, who did not face interference and restrictions from male relatives and who, as the sole income earner, were highly motivated because of the need to survive. Of the four most successful, Zinash (aged 35), Tsehay (aged 35), Etsehiwot (aged 22) and Hiwot (aged 23), only Hiwot was married and it was significant that by the end of the research period, her husband had taken over almost full control of the canteen. Of the other five married women, only Meriem (aged 27) showed considerable potential. The others did not do well. Yet, in three cases, male members of the household gave more active support than before the training. Conversely, of the unmarried women, Tsegerada (aged 30) did badly.

The training was able to build on the women's existing small business experiences by focusing on practical issues relating to their economic activities and making use of the immediate context in which the women found themselves. For example, Zinash said that she had used market survey beforehand to find out what was in short supply in the neighbourhood, but she had not been sure that she was doing it correctly. The training had confirmed and consolidated her existing knowledge. This poses the question whether it is more effective to provide training to those already operating in the market, as in this case, or to those who have no experience of it as in the Indian case. At the same time, the training addressed not only women's practical needs (earning a living), but also their strategic needs in that some of the training looked to provide them with confidence to see themselves as potential business women able to compete with men. However, it did not facilitate their move into new (male) areas of business.

As for the training experience itself, the training hall was empowering to the women as it was located in a government office and this was the first time that most of them had been in such premises. They appeared to appreciate the formal setting and some told the researcher that they preferred training there to training close to their home or business. For those who were illiterate, it was their first experience of a formal educational setting.

However, the training methodology was somewhat inappropriate for those who were illiterate because at times the participants had to read from the blackboard and to copy (one criterion for participation was in fact literacy but this was obviously not strictly observed). The inability to calculate income and expenditure on paper was no doubt also a disadvantage to the women in their productive activities; however, as noted, not many of the literate women did this. ¹⁵

¹⁵ ACORD has conducted a number of surveys to enhance its understanding of the impact of the training it offers. In one such survey, two CBOs were compared, one successful and the other facing difficulties. Both CBOs had received a wide range of training inputs. One of the main conclusions drawn was that the impact of training is determined above all else by internal group dynamics, such as the level of cohesion and trust between members, the existence of a team spirit and the degree of homogeneity in terms of age, sex, educational and social background, economic status etc. It also found that level of literacy was a factor in influencing ability to transmit lessons learnt to the group. Women's CBOs are clearly at a disadvantage here but this may be offset by the high level of cohesion within female CBOs. This conclusion is relevant to the group dynamics found in the Indian case study (source: Angela Hadjepateras, ACORD)

The link between training and credit was also clearcut in this study: the women would not have been able to apply the newly acquired skills without having the credit to put into a new or an expanding business. Likewise, the data showed clearly that in all the cases where there was an increase in income, this was the result of the application of new skills.

As already noted, the effectiveness of the training depended on many factors beyond the women's or the household's control. These included access to sufficient credit (all these women held loans from their CBOs but they were very small), stability and size of the market, existing employment opportunities, government policy on small businesses, and security of premises from which to conduct business (e.g. Tsehay was worried that if she was too successful the owners of the two canteens which she rented would either increase the rent or take them back to run themselves). The economic situation in Dire Dawa was not good in the latter stages of the research, as documented above, and this had a negative impact on the women's already low and unstable incomes.

As the researcher noted, the market tapped by the women was prone to saturation:

Poor women with limited skills and opportunities enter into a business which in most cases is an extension of their domestic work. These are related to the sale of cooked foods, drinks and small shop items. As most of the women engage in these activities, it creates market saturation.