AID grant no. 608-0187-G-00-5045-00 to Catholic Relief Services to support a small-scale enterprise development project in Morocco

CRS will train five ISCAE graduates to provide consulting assistance to 40 small firms (i.e., those with 7-20 employees) in the Casablanca area. Initially up to eight recent ISCAE graduates will undergo an intensive 3-month training program in small business problems, the psychology of small business owners, and the constraints and incentives affecting small businesses in Morocco. At the end of the training period, the top five trainees will be selected as ISCAE consultants. Each of the five consultants will provide management advice to eight firms within three subsectors, which will be preselected by CRS on the basis of such factors as growth potential and number of women workers (the textile subsector is likely to be one of the three). The consultants will perform in-depth appraisals of the firms, diagnose internal management constraints, and suggest solutions. Once a firm"s management problems have been resolved, firm will be removed from the program and replaced with another, but contact will be maintained throughout the project period to determine the lasting effectiveness of the consultancies. A development fund will be established to help firms procure assistance beyond what the consultants can provide, e.g., advice on production techniques or types of financing. This assistance may include sectoral-level seminars, observational travel, or individual TA from Moroccan or overseas experts, e.g., the International Executive Service Corps. The fund will be used only in cases where the firm is willing to contribute a portion of the cost of the intervention, but is realistically unable to provide such a contribution.