The Challenges of Growing Small Businesses - International Labour ...

(31 per cent) had received loans from an MFI, a further 15 (12 per cent) had done so from
a bank, and 5 had borrowed from moneylenders. Only those who were able to offer
premises as collateral were successful in borrowing from the banks, and even then the
collateral had to be as much as 125 per cent of value of the loan. The in-depth case studies
revealed that those women who had been successful in obtaining loans, had experienced
problems with the attitudes of the bank staff who, it was felt, were not accustomed to
dealing with MSEs or with women as business owners. The Tanzanian women
entrepreneurs who borrowed from the MFIs made similar comments as those from Zambia
and Ethiopia – notably that the loans were too small and often attached to group lending
mechanisms that the women considered inappropriate to the circumstances of running a
growing business.
In Tanzania women entrepreneurs accessed a wide range of non-financial services as
shown in Table 18 below. In general the women were very satisfied with the support they
had received, especially those receiving technical training in the food industry. Other
comments were made about the start-up focus and generalist nature of the business
training, with the women entrepreneurs requesting more advanced and topic-specific
training, especially related to marketing. Women in the health and beauty sector said that
there was no training available for their sector in Tanzania and most went abroad for such
support. Under the banner of “other services”, some women had been at trade fairs, some
received a small amount of marketing support, and others received specific sector-based
assistance.
Table 18: Business support services accessed by the women entrepreneurs in Tanzania
Services accessed Number %
Training in business 42 32.8
Technical training [food processing] 22 17.2
Training in marketing 16 12.5
Other technical training 9 7.0
Training in record/book-keeping 6 4.7
Other services 33 25.8
Total 128 100.0
Source ILO, 2003b, p. 39.
4.8.3 Women’s business associations
As a whole, the field research showed a low-to-moderate membership of business
associations amongst the women – 31 per cent of women entrepreneurs in Ethiopia were
members, 33 per cent in Tanzania, and 47 per cent in Zambia. This was a little surprising
given that some of the original listings used to identify the research sample of women
entrepreneurs were taken from association registers.
In Zambia, 54 per cent of the women interviewed were not clear about the role of
women’s business associations, and this included some of those who were members of
such associations. Of those who were clear, the majority saw the associations as being
primarily about: training members; facilitating networking and information sharing;
connecting members to wider markets and marketing information, and advocacy work.
Of the 31 women entrepreneurs in Ethiopia who were members of some form of
association, a large number were in women’s business associations (61 per cent) and
Chambers of Commerce (45 per cent) – including some 15 per cent who were members of
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