Micro-enterprise Development
What is it?
Micro-enterprise is a small business in the developing world. The owner of a micro-enterprise is an entrepreneur who works with limited resources to build a business to support a family in order to live with dignity and hope. Typically these entrepreneurs are denied access to the commercial banking sector because of the small size of their operations and their lack of collateral.
Micro-enterprise development can be an effective development program in addressing global hunger. Currently 1.5 billion people live in extreme poverty and more than one billion face daily issues of hunger and malnutrition. For 90% of the world’s hungry, food is available but they lack the money to buy it. The first Millennium Development Goal is to eradicate extreme hunger and poverty. One of the targets for this goal is to halve by 2015 the proportion of people whose income is less than $1 a day.
One of the most important factors of poverty is the lack of stable employment at an adequate wage. Ironically, the poor often have entrepreneurial instincts and the willingness to work hard. But they lack job training and access to small loans to start their businesses. A thriving business literally means increased family income, food on the table and education for children.
The Sharing Way’s micro-enterprise development programs combine training, mentoring and small loans. Often participants are part of loan groups which develop mutual accountability. As the loans are repaid the same funds are made available for other entrepreneurs from the community. The women and men who receive loans are sometimes able to expand their businesses with further loans and create employment for other people. The Sharing Way’s micro-enterprise development programs include loan clients from farmers groups, the Guardian of Hope program and the Children of Hope program in Rwanda.
The Sharing Way has micro-enterprise programs in:
- Angola
- Bolivia
- El Salvador
- India
- Kenya
- Rwanda
Click here for more information on our work with micro-enterprise featured in our 2008/2009 Hunger for Change Annual Campaign
