ACCESS!
for Africa Business Women
in International Trade
Paper Presented at the ATPC Meeting
Addis Ababa, April 21-21, 2009
Content
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Implementing Partners - CAWEE and SIDO
Situation of Women Exporters in the Two Countries
The Role ACCESS! Program Played in Addressing the Needs of
Women Exporters
Overview of the ACCESS! Program
Product Development & Market Promotion
Award Event
Complementary Initiatives
ACCESS! Initiative Outcomes/Achievements
CAWEE
 CAWEE is an indigenous NGO established in June 2004
to promote women entrepreneurs
 CAWEE believes that “ Empowering Women
Economically is Key to Development”
 The mission of CAWEE is to promote women
entrepreneurs with a special focus to women exporters
 The vision of CAWEE is to have globally
competitive core women entrepreneurs class
 To promote its activities, CAWEE works very closely
with different partners & stakeholders – both
Governmental and non governmental
SIDO
 To facilitate the development and strengthening of
SMEs - skills upgrading, linkage to potential suppliers
of working tools, products and market promotion
 To facilitate the development of basic infrastructures for
SME’s - working premises, utilities, technology
development centers, Incubators, etc
 To provide guided technical trainings through Training
Cum Production Centers
 Facilitates appropriate technology development and
transfer
 Offering financial services to SMEs
Situation of Women
Exporters
Sample surveys on situation analysis in Ethiopia and Tanzania,
conducted in 2004 by CIDA , indicated that women exporters
face diverse problems & challenges :
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Lack of access to market information
Lack of knowledge in international market
Lack of access to export financing
Lack of access to advisory services ( e.g mentoring)
Lack of capacity to develop export plan
Lack of capacity to find joint venture partners
Lack of capacity in using the internet for
international business
Role ACCESS! Played
 ACCESS! was a very timely program to address some of
the problems women exporters face
 The intervention was made based on survey results and it was
demand driven
 The careful preparations made before the launch of the
program ( preparation of the training manual, selection of
country focal points & trainers, training of trainers) was the
key to the success of the intervention
 The professional guidance, proper follow-up of the executing
agencies (International Trade Centre-ITC and Trade
Facilitation Office, Canada-TFOC) played a vital role
Overview of
ACCESS! Program
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ACCESS! program targets actual, potential/emerging
women exporters
The initiative provides:
. An exporter training program, for women exporting
their products and services
. A mentorship element to complement the
exporter training,
. A web-portal, facilitating women's access to
relevant export information tools & services
as well as networking opportunities
. An award program to encourage best performers & to
profile role models
Overview Cont.
 The ACCESS! 1st phase was operational for 18
months ( June 2005-December 2006)
 Training package, covering 22 modules was prepared
 National ACCESS! trainers were trained in Dar Es SalaamTanzania (3 women & 2 men in Ethiopia ;3 women and 4
men in Tanzania)
 The Pro-invest support ACCESS! Regional program,
covering 3 countries – Ethiopia, Tanzania & Uganda
complemented ( August 2007-February 2008)
 ACCESS! Trade in Services, covering 3 countries – Ethiopia,
Nigeria & South Africa continued ( November 2007September 2008)
Trainings
Trainings Conducted in International Trade in the
two countries had following results:
 For women exporting their products, 12 trainings took place, 282
entrepreneurs trained - 25 % were men & 26 ACCESS!
potential trainers trained in both countries
 For women in trade in services in Ethiopia, 2 training done, 44
entrepreneurs were trained of which 11 were men
 There is a long waiting list ready for up-coming trainings, both producers
and service providers
 Feedbacks from trainees , stakeholders and external evaluation
reports have confirmed that ACCESS! trainings were very relevant in
filling a big gap which was never properly addressed and given due
attention as women are mostly not included in general training programs
Mentoring
 Mentoring tool kits were developed, for both
existing and potential exporters
 81 companies both existing and potential
exporters were mentored in the two countries
 In Ethiopia 12 companies that are in trade in
services were mentored
 One to one Mentoring complementing the
ACCESS! training proved to be very
effective
Web-portal
 With major support given from Trade
Facilitation Office, Canada the portal was
created (www.womenexporters.com)
 The profiles of 87 ACCESS! Trainees from the
two countries are featured
 Many of the trainees visit the portal regularly
and few managed to develop their own
web sites
Product Development & Market
Promotion
Focused on the hand-loom sub-sector:
- Six companies, all owned & managed by women, went
through a product development process for 10 months
- Product samples were continuously tested in the
Canadian market, based on the feedback, the products
were further developed to meet the export standard
- The companies developed professional marketing
materials for export promotion
- The 6 companies, that went through the product
development & market promotions processes, participated
in an international trade show in Canada & were able to
meet potential buyers & establish sells contacts
- The companies cost shared in all the activity areas
Award Event
Award events were organized to celebrate success &
encourage women exporters:
- Based on their export performance, 4 companies
were awarded in Tanzania and 6 companies
were awarded by the President of Ethiopia
- The event was very instrumental in encouraging
the companies awarded and also encouraging
others to follow their foot steps
- The awarded companies started to serve as role
models to others
- The event motivated workers of the awarded
companies
Complementary Initiatives -Ethiopia
 The US Embassy, Addis Ababa, supporting the Women
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Entrepreneurs Group (WEG):
- Capacity building activities
- Providing support in facilitating export market - in May 2007
five US buyers came to Addis, with great impact resulted in ,
some companies exporting to the US
- Guarantee Fund of 4.3 million USD allocated targeting
women entrepreneurs
The GTZ working on capacity building of Ethiopian Women
Exporters Association
The ILO working on capacity building of women entrepreneurs
& their associations
The UNDP/Regional Gender Program promoting African
women entrepreneurs role models by documenting profiles
The Spanish Government, through its NEPAD fund, supporting
women entrepreneurs
Complementary Initiatives-Tanzania
 The UNIDO program on Food processing started in 1993
whereby over 7,000 women (1% men) were trained of which
3000 have started their own businesses
 The UNIDO Regional programme on Development of Women
and Youth in Agri Business covering countries of Malawi,
Eritrea, Zimbabwe, Kenya and Tanzania
 The UN-International Fund for Agriculture Development
project focusing on rural entrepreneurship development
 The ILO working on capacity building of women entrepreneurs
& their associations
 Creation of Tanzania Women Chamber of Commerce-TWCC to
to empower women entrepreneurs with SIDO’s initiative
ACCESS! Initiative
Outcomes/ Achievements
The ACCESS! Program was very instrumental in:
 Building institutional capacities like – CAWEE ,SIDO,
TWCC and capacities of other Stakeholders/Partners
 Developing national human resource, in training
trainers in international trade
 Developing company capacities in international trade, with
a very special focus designed to women exporters
 The Regional programs were good grounds for experience
sharing ,networking and exposures