Involving women in microenterprise development projects : lessons learned from Aries

ARIES" major WID accomplishment has been the organization and sharing of existing knowledge about the integration of women into microenterprise projects through seminars and the AskARIES Knowledgebase. Ongoing activities to set up gender disaggregated monitoring and evaluation systems could contribute significantly to institutionalizing the integration of women in SME programming in the future. Unfortunately, most of these contributions occurred too late in the life of the project to provide strong guidance for other ARIES activities. ARIES" greatest WID shortcoming is the project design, which lacks a strategy for ensuring women"s access to relevant SME development activities and requires neither gender analysis nor collection of gender disaggregated data during the life of the project. These considerations were rarely included in scopes of work and were not discussed in the midterm evaluation. As a result, data are insufficient to assess the extent to which women participated in and benefited from the project, even for activities with specific WID components. Of 37 TA activities, only 6 included WID components and another 7 provided some gender disaggregation of data and/or consideration of gender issues. Most activities did not significantly increase women"s SME access. In many of the other activities with no WID component, gender analysis and integration of women in project activities could have enhanced project outcomes. Training activities have included considerably more male than female participants. Gender disaggregated data on participants were not routinely kept. ARIES training packages do not adequately address basic gender considerations, even though these materials could be the most longlasting outputs of the project and have considerable impact on the integration of women into SME projects. As a result of this assessment, guidelines to sensitize trainers to gender issues are being developed. The follow-on Growth and Equity through Microenterprise Investments and Institutions (GEMINI) Project (1989-1994) does require the integration of gender issues in SME studies and TA. An important task for GEMINI will be to identify the specific conditions under which women are most effectively integrated into SME programs. Lessons learned are as follows. (1) It is important to approach women entrepreneurs as potential economic contributors and producers rather than as "vulnerable", "excluded", or "disadvantaged". (2) Gender analysis provides a means to more effectively target resources and increases the likelihood of positive returns on assistance dollars. (3) It is essential to have a system for ensuring women"s access to SME activities that is not dependent on individuals" commitment and action. (4) Institutional constraints at all points of the development process can limit or prevent women"s participation in SME projects. (5) Integrating women in microenterprise projects is a long-term process requiring training for attitude change and skill building, updates of information on gender issues, guidance in gender disaggregated data collection and analysis, and monitoring and follow up. (6) It is essential to include in the project design -- in the logframe, the capability of the implementing organization, and specific scopes of work -- a strategy for ensuring women"s access to project activities and collecting and using gender disaggregated data. (7) It is important to attend to WID issues early on in a project. (8) Targeting of sectors in which women are involved is an effective way to integrate women into SME projects. (9) It is necessary to systematically collect and analyze gender-disaggregated baseline and outcome data on all project activities, to provide guidance for improving them and a basis for assessing their social as well as their economic impact. (Author abstract, modified)