Sustainable Development Success Stories
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CSD-8: Sustainable Development Success Stories |
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Location |
Peru |
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Responsible Organisation |
Centro de Investigación y Apoyo Tecnológico (CIAT); Trickle Up Program, and community officials, from Namora district, Cajamarca, Perú |
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Description |
"Big businesses start small", that is the motto of the collaborative project between the Peruvian organization CIAT and the Manhattan-based Trickle Up Program. The program’s goal is to teach business management skills and build self-determination and self-esteem, while providing a way for women to create a sustainable source of cash income for their families. CIAT has over 16 years’ experience working with isolated farming villages in the northern Peruvian highlands. Trickle Up has twenty years’ experience helping the world’s poorest start their own businesses. Together they opened up opportunities for the most impoverished women of highland communities, off the beaten track of Peruvian development, to learn, think, and act like successful entrepreneurs, bringing them their innovative combination of technical assistance, business training and seed capital. The program works well in isolated regions because it is straightforward, with low implementation costs and almost-immediate results. Trickle Up’s local partner agency CIAT contacts local community officials, who identify the women whose families are most in need of assistance. In an initial meeting, CIAT explains the program to the women and asks them to consider what kind of business they might start. In a second meeting, the women receive basic business training, then plan their businesses (using a basic Business Plan form) and receive 50 US$ seed capital. CIAT also provides technical assistance for agriculture and animal raising geared to the particular demands of the region. The most recent project began in September 1999, in Namora district. In this isolated region, business opportunities are limited. An assessment of available local resources, however, indicated an abundance of quality grass for grazing and an underused resource, as many families have no capital to buy livestock. In view of this resource, many of the women chose to buy sheep: some for fattening, others for breeding. Women, who negotiate their purchase as a group, obtain a lower price. |
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Issues |
Finance and trade, poverty alleviation, changing production and consumption patterns, land resources management, empowering women. |
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Results |
After only two months in this program, the Namora women demonstrated an impressive knowledge of basic business concepts (such as operating costs, profit and reinvestment), attuned to the reality in which they live and work. Women who previously relied only on subsistence agriculture for survival are now able to generate cash income for their families. Using an abundantly available local resource, previously under exploited, the women are able to make their seed capital grow quickly. And since the entire amount of the capital, plus 20% required reinvestment returns to the business, the businesses are on a solid foundation for sustainability. Women are empowered to make decisions, to experiment, and to exercise creative thinking as a group, although in a sample group of twenty women, not two had exactly the same business. Some women chose to collaborate, others to work alone. All, however, share their experiences in regular meetings, allowing others to learn from their successes and mistakes. |
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Lessons |
The poorest are not always viable microcredit clients: this project offers an alternative micro enterprise methodology. It is doubtful whether microcredit services could ever be profitably provided in this region; the risks are too high. And even if they were, the families in this project would never qualify for a loan. The businesses are sustainable but small; they could not generate enough income in the first six months to pay off their startup costs and still maintain their capital. One key to this project’s success is the partnership between a local NGO, which knows the region well and offers locally appropriate technical support, an international NGO with a proven methodology for business startup among the poorest, and local leaders, who provide support and in-depth community knowledge. |
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Contacts |
Robyn Eversole, Ph.D., Program Officer for
the Americas, |