Ethiopia Women Entrepreneurship Development Project

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The objective of the Women Entrepreneurship Development Project for Ethiopia is to increase the earnings and employment of Micro and Small Enterprise, or MSEs owned or partly owned by the participating female entrepreneurs in the targeted cities. This will be achieved by: i) tailoring financial instruments to the needs of the participants and ensuring availability of finance; and ii) developing the entrepreneurial and technical skills of the target group and supporting cluster, technology and product development for their businesses. There are three components to the project, the first component being access to microfinance. The aim of the component is to facilitate access to financial services for female growth-oriented entrepreneurs by providing working capital and investment finance through a dedicated line of credit. At the same time, the component aims at improving the capacity of existing Micro-Finance Institutions, or MFIs to serve female growth-oriented entrepreneurs with tailored financial products. The second component is the entrepreneurial skills, technology and cluster development. The aim of this component is to develop growth-oriented women entrepreneurs' skills, facilitate their access to more productive technologies that can raise their incomes, and help unleash synergies from clustering. Finally, the third component is the project management, advocacy and outreach, monitoring and evaluation and impact evaluation.