In Kenya, agriculture is considered the most important segment of the economy—especially in West Pokot County, where it accounts for 84% of household income. However, 69% of the population in West Pokot already live below the poverty line. Women and girls living in extreme poverty in arid and semi-arid regions that depend on agriculture such as West Pokot are some of the most vulnerable populations facing threats from climate change.

Above: The Suam River, located in Western Kenya along the Ugandan border, is a major resource for local communities. Year after year, these communities have seen significant decreases in water-levels, impacting their day to day life and ability to earn a living.

“If climate change isn’t addressed, individuals in the agricultural sector will lose their livelihoods, and in an effort to ensure their children are taken care of and well fed, many of them will pressure their girls into child marriage,” explains Nelly Munge, Technical Advisor Gender, Youth and Social Inclusion at Village Enterprise. “There are other risks as well. Often in regions like West Pokot, girls are forced to drop out of school to find water, and women and girls who are forced to migrate because of climate change will face an increased risk of violence.”

Kenyan women account for 75% of the labor force in small-scale agriculture, yet they have access to less than 10% of available credit and less than 1% of agricultural credit. “The majority of women farmers have been left out of both grassroots and national-level climate adaptation discussions,” says Nelly Munge. “Women farmers experience critical barriers to climate adaptation such as lack of credit and savings, as well as a lack of knowledge and training about climate-smart adaptations.”

Because of culturally-derived gender inequality in the region, the majority of men find less labor intensive work as security guards or supervisors. Although lesser in numbers, male farmers are better positioned than female farmers to adapt climate-friendly practices as they have greater access to appropriate information, training, and resources. In times of drought, men can more easily leave their homes to find alternative sources of income while women typically have more household responsibilities such as raising children and tending to the home.

This was the case for Roserlyne, Faith, and Eliza, of Parasenta village in West Pokot until March of 2021 when they were selected for an adapted version of the Village Enterprise graduation program, called the Women Economic Empowerment through Climate-Smart Agriculture Project. Funded by Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) and in partnership with UNWomen and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the project aims to enhance the capacity of West Pokot county officials to develop gender-sensitive and climate-smart policies and to increase household income for women in the agricultural value chain using modern farming technologies that are climate-smart.

Pictured above: Faith Chepochongil, Eliza Cherop Gabriel, and Roserlyne Chepochemuma Lorengei in Parasenta village (left to right).

Eliza, Faith, and Roserlyne were three of more than 800 people living in extreme poverty in West Pokot who were identified by Village Enterprise to start sustainable agribusinesses. Of these 809 entrepreneurs, 80% of them were women. On top of receiving training from Village Enterprise to start their businesses and $180 as a seed investment, entrepreneurs received training on climate-smart agriculture from FAO. Entrepreneurs learned about techniques to improve agricultural outputs in a changing farming environment such as proper irrigation, planting drought tolerant crops, and moisture retention practices. For Roserlyne, Faith, and Eliza, these trainings meant they now knew how to implement climate-smart techniques throughout the entire agricultural value chain, and they shared that these methods have also increased the quality of their produce.

To approach the topic of climate-change adaptations with a holistic lens, Village Enterprise is also working to address gender, youth, and social dynamics. As part of our poverty graduation model, each business is part of a business savings group of 10 businesses that gives the entrepreneurs access to growth capital and a safe place for their savings. The business savings groups also serve as safe spaces for women to share any issues, learn from one another, and find support, demonstrating increased confidence and leadership skills. Faith shared that through this group they are “now able to lift each other’s lives.”

Above: Adaptations in agricultural practices are becoming increasingly vital for West Pokot farmers to cope with changing climate conditions. The photo on the left shows the difficult conditions farmers are attempting to grow crops in. The photo on the right shows the crops of Village Enterprise entrepreneurs. Through trainings provided by FAO, entrepreneurs are learning techniques to improve their crops in a changing farming environment.  

While women and youth participants are becoming more aware of the different opportunities for them to participate in climate-smart agriculture, male spouses are increasing support over their newfound household income. Eliza spoke of how her relationship with her spouse has greatly improved because she can now afford to put food on the table for the entire family, noting “it feels good to have your own money as a woman.” Through financial literacy and gender empowerment training, entrepreneurs have reported a decrease in household gender-based violence.

Within a year, Roserlyne, Faith, and Eliza have collectively saved over 80,000 Kenyan shillings ($691 USD), purchased goats and chickens for their home, sent all of their children to school, and Faith even purchased a mattress so she no longer has to sleep on the floor. In total, this project is estimated to directly impact the lives of 2,400 people. And with support from Village Enterprise, the West Pokot County Government has formulated two policies to address issues of climate mitigation and financing of climate change interventions. These policies, acting as catalysts of cultural and behavioral changes, will change the course of history for West Pokot women, girls, and climate for generations to come.

The post How Female Farmers in West Pokot are Building Resilience to Climate Change appeared first on Village Enterprise.

In Uganda, nearly half of the population lives on less than $1.90USD per day, a trend that back-dates multiple generations. Individuals living in extreme poverty are given limited access to credit, healthcare, and education, all of which impede their ability to lift themselves out of poverty. Exacerbated by the global food crisis, economic repercussions of the global pandemic, and climate change, escaping the intergenerational cycle of poverty is more difficult than ever.

This was the case for Agnes Alepo of the Onyorai village in Uganda when she was selected to join the Village Enterprise poverty graduation program* in November of 2019. After four months of rigorous business training, she received a seed capital grant to start a business with her friends Adongo and Amodoi. The future appeared bright for Agnes until when, less than a month later, the government of Uganda reported the country’s first confirmed case of Covid-19. None of their business training could have prepared the women for what followed: months of closed borders, suspended public transport, restricted cross-district movement, and imposed nation-wide curfews.

With fear on everyone’s minds, the team’s Village Enterprise business mentor, David Eseru, reached out by telephone. Under normal circumstances, David would travel to each business group’s village to provide his mentorship. With a country-wide lockdown in place, telephone mentoring became the only option, but it also became a lifeline for Agnes, Adongo and Amodoi.

Over the phone, Agnes and her business partners were able to voice all of their concerns and receive advice in real-time. Together, the four of them brainstormed ideas to adapt to the circumstances. Noticing a trend in population migration from cities to villages, the women saw an opportunity to earn money baking and selling cakes directly in their village. However, with transit restricted from the lockdown, they worried that they wouldn’t be able to travel the necessary distance to gather supplies. There was one silver lining: bicycles were not included in the restricted transportation list.

Every week, sometimes twice a week, Agnes rode her bike more than 25 kilometers in search of raw materials. While she was away, her business partners took care of the sales. Through this efficiency, they were able to keep their prices relatively low and villagers started buying their cakes in droves.

With help from their Village Enterprise business mentor, David, the team set weekly targets, motivating them to remain focused on their goals. Through this iterative process, they were able to identify another opportunity to diversify into a new business by setting up a retail shop selling sugar, soap, salt, and other basic necessities.

In under a year, Agnes went from having no economic means to owning not one but several businesses bringing in an income of UGX 200,000 ($57 USD) per month. Supported by her husband, who also contributes to her savings, she has become a trailblazing example in her community, putting away at least UGX 31,000 ($9 USD) per week into her local business savings group. In a time when hospitals were overloaded with Covid cases, Agnes and her business partners were able to provide their families with the necessary means to keep them safe and healthy. One year later, she had saved up UGX 1.4M ($400). She was also able to purchase a cow, something a woman rarely does in her village, as well as chickens and turkeys.

Agnes speaks about how lessons she learned from Village Enterprise continue to inform and animate her life. “Every day I think about how to make more money. I never want to go back to the life we had before Village Enterprise came to us.” She continues, “I would never have done this without my husband’s support, my two fellow co-entrepreneurs, my Village Enterprise mentor, and the members of my business savings group.”

While the extent of Agnes’ formal education stops at the primary school level, her four children, although still young, now talk of going to university one day. In spite of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, Agnes feels confident that her newly founded skills and resilience will allow her to handle whatever life throws at her and her family. For the first time in generations, history will not be destiny.

* Agnes and her business partners were part of Village Enterprise’s poverty graduation program funded by the Village Enterprise Development Impact Bond

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Achieving our Greatest Impact To Date

We lifted more Africans out of extreme poverty than at any other time in our history, starting 57% more businesses than the previous year. Despite pandemic-related lockdowns throughout Africa, our team equipped over 18,000 first-time entrepreneurs with the resources to start 6,002 sustainable businesses, transforming the lives of over 120,000 individuals. To achieve this new level of scale, we expanded to Rwanda and Mozambique.

Combating Malnutrition

Over the past year, Village Enterprise partnered with Catholic Relief Services and USAID to pilot the Nawiri project, an adapted poverty graduation program to combat malnutrition in Isiolo County and assess its effectiveness. Over the past year, we started 204 businesses and 20 business savings groups with $19,258.20 in savings, allowing 810 children to receive better nutrition and increased access to health care.

Joining Forces with Government

Building upon the successful development of a Graduation policy, we launched the Kenya Social and Economic Inclusion Project (KSEIP) alongside the Boma Project and the Global Development Incubator, which was integrated into existing poverty alleviation programs in West Pokot in partnership with Wasafiri and the county government of West Pokot. This project is intended to build the government of Kenya’s capacity to implement economic inclusion activities and integrate the graduation model with existing social protection programs.

Addressing Illegal Wildlife Trade

For the last four years, we have been addressing issues on illegal wildlife trade and human-wildlife conflict by implementing the Park Actions project in Murchison Falls National Park, Uganda. Funded by the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and working alongside the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), the Uganda Wildlife Authority, Wildlife Conservation Society, the Uganda Conservation Foundation, and other local nonprofits, Village Enterprise established 180 wildlife friendly businesses as a means to generate alternative sources of income. As a result, 89% of the Village Enterprise participants and 60% of the general population now have improved attitudes towards conservation work. These results were published by IIED as a case study, research report, and blog.

Reimagining “Aid” for Refugees

We secured $20 million over five years in funding for Delivering Resilient Enterprises and Market Systems for Refugees (DREAMS), a program created in partnership with Mercy Corps and IDinsight. Together we will transform the lives of 150,000 of the most vulnerable refugees of Uganda and Ethiopia by integrating two economic development models – poverty graduation and market systems development – to ensure the poorest refugee households can generate income, build assets, start to save, and improve their well-being.

Innovating Results-Based Financing

For the past four years, we have been implementing the first Development Impact Bond for poverty alleviation in sub-Saharan Africa with $5.32M in funding directed towards increasing consumption and assets of 14,100+ first-time entrepreneurs living in extreme poverty. An independent randomized controlled trial (RCT) conducted by IDinsight this year measured the outcomes of the program changes. Investors will be paid back by the outcome funders based on the results of the RCT that will be published in March 2022.

Tackling the Technology Divide Through Innovative Digital Solutions

In 2020, we received funding from the Covid-19 Adaptation Fund, managed by Instiglio and Global Development Incubator, to test and integrate technological adaptations to our program. Over the past year, our technology team designed a hybrid learning and training platform by producing training videos, distributing portable projectors and smartphones, and creating a toll-free number for entrepreneurs to ask questions of their mentors in real-time. As a result, our staff conducted 50% more trainings with 85% of participants noting satisfaction with the new technology. This year, we hired Scott Isbrandt, our new Vice President of Digital Solutions, to spearhead relevant technology partnerships and tools that further increase efficiency and impact.

Building a World-Class African Team

We hired diverse, dedicated, and passionate leaders to drive our locally adapted program. We hired Sylvere Mwizerwa, our first-ever Country Manager in Rwanda, promoted John Ilima to become our Country Director of Uganda, and promoted Leah Bwari Okero to Director of Partnerships. To provide an atmosphere of professional growth and trust, we launched “Lead@VE”, a professional development training program in an interactive setting.

Investing in Women’s Agency

We prioritized women’s empowerment, developing strategies to tackle gender inequity. This year, women represented 83% of our program participants. Focusing on the theme of gender equity through financial inclusion, we hosted our second annual Voices of Tumaini virtual event. The event featured a panel comprised of representatives from Days for Girls International, Lwala Community Alliance, and The Starbucks Foundation who spoke about partnerships with Village Enterprise that address the intersection of women’s empowerment, financial inclusion, nutrition, and menstrual health management.

Evolving Our Brand

As we aim to transform the poverty alleviation sector, we knew that our branding should also represent that same dedication to innovation and locally-driven transformation. After months of staff and community input, research, and design, we launched a new logo, brand, and website in April 2021. The updated Village Enterprise website represents months of hard work by our entire team as well as assistance from our creative partner, Advocate Creative.

The post Ten of Our Greatest Achievements of 2021 appeared first on Village Enterprise.

To address this systemic issue, the USAID Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance is funding the Nawiri Project, a Development Food Security Activity. The first of its kind in Kenya, Nawiri is designed to sustainably reduce persistent acute malnutrition through a multi-sectoral approach in four counties in Northern Kenya. In partnership with Catholic Relief Services, Village Enterprise adapted our poverty graduation program for nutrition by layering it with additional components of cash transfers for consumption, health and nutrition education, counseling, and social behavior change.

The adapted nutrition-friendly graduation approach focuses on helping the poorest and most vulnerable households develop sustainable livelihoods, increase incomes, improve access to nutritious foods, address nutrition-sensitive interventions that contribute to a reduction in acute malnutrition among children under the age of five, and lift themselves out of poverty.

Over the past year, Village Enterprise focused on piloting–and assessing the effectiveness of–the adapted poverty graduation program to combat malnutrition in the Isiolo County of Kenya. The county is very remote and suffers from floods, drought, animal diseases, resource-based conflicts, and gender discrimination. The pilot targeted 600 households, launching 204 sustainable businesses and 20 business savings groups.

The early success of this program has been tremendous, with the proportion of participating households’ that met the Acceptable Food Consumption Score increasing from 51.3% to 83.8% over three and a half months. Even more significant, the percentage of children between the ages of six months to 23 months who met the minimum acceptable diet measurement rose from 6.38% to 31.65%. The business savings groups saved, in just four months, over two million Kenyan shillings (close to $18,000 USD) to use for accumulating assets, investing in business ventures, or saving for emergencies. Testimonials from entrepreneurs showed increased resilience to the ongoing climate shocks, particularly for entrepreneurs rearing livestock, who were able to diversify their businesses to cushion themselves from the negative effects of market price fluctuation, drought, and livestock disease.

The success of this pilot has already led to additional funding to scale the project to launch 1,400 small businesses this coming year, that will impact the lives of over 25,200 people including 10,920 children under the age of five, providing a positive outlook on the otherwise troubling state of global persistent acute malnutrition.

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A recent article in the Nation, a leading Kenyan newspaper, demonstrated how our graduation approach has been adapted in the Nawiri project to tackle challenges in multiple sectors (poverty, environmental degradation, malnutrition, and health).

In November of 2021, members from USAID visited the project, holding a series of meetings and calls with project stakeholders to discuss progress and implementation. To read the activity briefs, click here.

Photo Credits: Anthony Nyandiek, CRS USAID Nawiri, and Michael Ekeno, Village Enterprise

The post Nawiri: To Thrive appeared first on Village Enterprise.

Women and adolescent girls are the most vulnerable group in Kenya, where only six percent of women belonging to the poorest wealth quintile are considered empowered. Contributing factors include gender-based violence, harmful cultural attitudes, and beliefs around gender roles. Women are given restricted control over resources, limiting their ability to participate in the economy. Unpaid childcare and domestic work further limit women’s available time, energy, and mobility needed for economic participation.

Yet there is immense potential for Kenyan women to contribute to their own well-being as well as that of their families, communities, and country via empowerment. 

Empowerment involves a transformative economic and psychological process of change due to one’s ability to make choices. This change is most significantly measured by a person’s ability to make choices and have opportunities, enabling them to stay out of poverty through income generation.

Meet Metrine Kuto.

Village Enterprise’s poverty graduation program powerfully provides a process of such transformation. Just one example of the radiating empowerment we build is the experience of Metrine Kuto, from Safina Village of Kenya. Metrine was targeted into the Village Enterprise program in March of 2019 and graduated in March of 2020.

Here is her story in her own words:

My name is Metrine Naliaka Kuto.

Before I started my business, I had a hopeless life, living in extreme poverty. I relied mainly on the little money my husband sent from his job as a security guard in Nairobi. I could barely afford enough food for my six children which meant that we were often hungry. With empty stomachs, my children would trek long distances without socks or shoes to attend school but were turned away because I could not afford their school fees. If my children were sick, I couldn’t even afford to seek medical attention.

In March 2019, I met Florence, a Village Enterprise business mentor, when she came to my home and introduced herself. She explained that she comes from a nonprofit and they have come to empower us to start our own businesses. This was the first time that an organization came to speak to the common man which I thought was very genuine. She asked me questions and after one week, I learned I was among the people who could join the program.

At the start of training, I had low self-esteem, sitting in the back of the room because I did not know how to talk in front of others. I didn’t think I could start a business because it is something I never thought I was worthy of. Florence encouraged me to sit in the front and called my name frequently until I gained more confidence. I learned to identify my strengths and weaknesses and became comfortable mobilizing other members of my group and encouraging those who wanted to drop out of the program not to give up.

After a few weeks of training, I was elected as the chairperson of Wekhoela Business Savings Group, which is still running to this day. We were taught how to save with a purpose, set aside money for emergencies, and how to keep regular savings Then three of us formed the Inuka business group, and because I had some experience selling secondhand clothes with my neighbor, I suggested secondhand clothing sales as our enterprise selection.

I enjoyed sharing my knowledge with my business partners who did not have experience selling clothes. When we had increased from one bale to three bales (secondhand clothes packed in different types, sizes, and weight), I took an individual loan from our business savings group, which helped me go from retail to wholesale of secondhand clothes.

With the profits from my business, I was able to build a house and fill it with furniture. I was also able to purchase some cows. I can give my family a balanced diet and we can access medication whenever we are sick. My children now have several pairs of shoes and socks. I put my children in private schools and even hired a motorbike to drive them to school and back home.

I am also seeing a change from my husband. He quit his job in Nairobi and now assists me in my business. We now sit together and make business decisions as equals. When I am away on business, he helps around the home with domestic chores. He is proud of me and tells everyone that his wife is a hard-working woman.

The village chief invites me to speak at meetings to inspire women in the community. I am on the management board for three schools and I was elected as a community health volunteer. If I have a problem, I can now take care of it myself. Village Enterprise built my belief that I could rise from zero to hero and helped me change my life from living in extreme poverty to where I am now.

The post Transforming the Trajectory of Future Generations to Come appeared first on Village Enterprise.

In order to address these inequities in conjunction with general program implementation, Village Enterprise participants are encouraged to bring their partners or spouses to the nine-module business training. Encouraging men to support their partners’ businesses improves household power dynamics while equalizing economic and care responsibilities in the family setting. 

To understand the impact our program can have when male spouses are involved, we interviewed Michael Erimu. Michael is not a Village Enterprise entrepreneur. He is, however, married to Grace Atim, a Village Enterprise retail clothing entrepreneur. The couple has seven children, and one of them is battling a life-threatening disease that weighs heavily on the family’s financial and emotional well-being. 

Michael is a shining example of how the intentional presence of a father and spouse can change lives. And with that, we wish all fathers globally a very happy fathers day! 

Michael tells his story below: 

Before my wife, Grace, joined Village Enterprise, I worked as a secondary school teacher. My job allowed me to support my family financially but required that I spend most of my time away from home. So while Grace cared for our children and watched over our home, I sent everything I had back to support them. However, everything changed when two of our children were diagnosed with life-threatening diseases. Although there are treatments available to manage the symptoms, they are either temporary, expensive, or both.

Caring for a loved one suffering from a chronic disease can take its toll on a family, and after a while, Grace could no longer care for our children alone. Most employers are empathetic, but because helping her meant that I often missed work, I eventually quit the teaching profession. Although we now had the time to care for our children, we were struggling to provide basic necessities for them in addition to the medical treatments required for our son. Furthermore, without stable jobs, we did not have access to growth capital, nor did we have a safe place to save money and borrow from in times of medical emergencies. Things were hard for my family for a long time, but in 2020, with Grace pregnant again, a Village Enterprise business mentor visited my wife and me, and everything changed.

The business mentor told us about the Village Enterprise poverty graduation program, which supports three entrepreneurs with different but complementary skills to form one business. He thought that Grace would be a perfect candidate for the program and that Village Enterprise would provide the seed capital to start her business after she completed training sessions. The business mentor assured us that consistent mentorship is part of the program. He also shared that the entrepreneurs would form business savings groups consisting of 30 entrepreneurs (10 business groups) per group. 

I wanted to learn how best to support my wife throughout this program, so I decided to attend all nine training modules with her. Through the training sessions, Grace learned how to turn her skill as a retail clothing hawker into a structured and profitable business.

After business training concluded in March, Grace started her new business – a retail thrift clothing store. She needed to transport heavy sacks of clothes from the wholesalers’ location to our compound, where she set up the selling space. She was heavily pregnant, so I took charge of lifting heavy sacks. We got into a daily routine, and before Grace would leave for the market, we would sit together as a family to plan her movements. We would decide how much to spend and how to split our parenting roles. I help her keep business records and sometimes make sales for her, and we have grown much closer. I represent her whenever she cannot attend business savings group meetings—just as her business mentor advised—and together, we decide how much to set aside for savings each week. 

Before Grace joined the Village Enterprise program, we were gambling and living month to month, hoping to generate enough money to support our children. Still, today, we think in terms of profits, expenditure, and future investment. So we save diligently and set money aside for emergency funds. 

I watched with pride as my wife bought two pigs, three goats, new plates, and new mattresses with profits from her business. These changes have been gradual yet incredibly fulfilling for our home life. I am grateful that I no longer have to travel far to support our children financially and can be fully present in their lives. Grace’s Village Enterprise business, which started as profit generation for her and her two friends, has evolved into a family business. My wife is the most hardworking woman I know, and I am so happy to support her.

The post A Ugandan Father Intentionally Breaking the Mold appeared first on Village Enterprise.

Wanican is one of the 4,500 first-time entrepreneurs who received seed capital to start their microenterprise as a result of this partnership. She is from the Okiir Village in northern Uganda. Before the death of her husband, Wanican fulfilled her housewife duties and left issues beyond the household to her husband. With the death of her husband, Wanican found herself head of her household, a status shared by only one in four women in her community.

After being introduced to Village Enterprise in 2017, Wanican transformed from a shy housewife to the confident leader of her business savings group.

This is her story.

In our society, a woman’s place is in the kitchen. For many years, I filled the role of a typical housewife, and any issues beyond the household were handled by my late husband. I was afforded little opportunity to join any social or formal community group like a town council or a farmer’s union—most established groups within were for men only. Other women like me had few opportunities to become members or leaders within our community as well. That was my reality until I was introduced to Village Enterprise.

The arrival of Village Enterprise in our community marked a turning point in my life — and for others. The pattern of men monopolizing group interactions and leadership was gone, and the program vowed to empower both men and women equally to work towards a poverty-free, sustainable, and bright future. I learned about leadership, group management, hygiene and sanitation, family support, business planning, and management.

Towards the end of our training, we formed a business saving group of 30 members. I was nominated to take on the role of chairperson. At first, I was hesitant and refused to accept the role due to fear and lack of confidence in my abilities. Despite feeling like I would not be able to manage this position, I was convinced to accept the position.

The Village Enterprise business mentors trained me on leadership and group management skills, and I started to gain confidence in my role as chairperson. I realized that I did not need to tell people what to do but rather facilitate, support, and counsel when important matters arose. As chairperson, I motivate group members to develop a vision for their families to contribute to their savings every week. I monitor and document those visions for each member, noticing positive changes for each family. My group members have a lot of trust and hope in my leadership, and we are now one of the best performing business savings groups in the Nwoya district.

To date, our savings have grown significantly, totaling over $7,000 USD, and we’ve been able to distribute savings three times now. Our focus is shifting toward saving enough money to build permanent housing structures for each member and their family. We agreed that each member should save 2,000 Uganda shillings per week so that in five years, each member will have enough money to purchase the materials to build their homes.

Through the program, I started a business with two other individuals growing rice, corn, and groundnuts. From my business’s profits and the savings from my business savings group, I bought three acres of land, five goats, a motorcycle for my son to earn money transporting people daily, and set up a mobile money shop town council. I built a latrine, rubbish pit, and bathing shelter, considerably reducing disease incidences among my family members.

The Village Enterprise program brought improvement and changes in our families and businesses, unlocking the tremendous potential hidden within us.

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According to a Global Systems for Mobile Communications report, the mobile ecosystem in sub-saharan Africa supported 3.8 million jobs directly and indirectly in 2018.

Further, increased digital technology adaptation is associated with a larger share of women working in the services sector, nearly two and a half times larger for women than men. Yet, less than 33% of the population has digital connectivity, with a significant gender gap as only 23% of women have digital connectivity. The most significant barriers to technological adaptation in sub-Saharan Africa are affordability, literacy, and digital skills.

One of Village Enterprise’s strategic priorities for the next three years is to develop innovative digital solutions that revolutionize small business development in Africa. Zita Akwero, the Village Enterprise Regional Manager for the northern and midwest Uganda regions, works to decrease this gap through the use of digital technology such as TaroWorks.

TaroWorks is a mobile data collection app that enables users to collect data in low or no network coverage areas. Later—once the user is in an area with better coverage—the data can be sent to a designated online server synced. The Village Enterprise monitoring and evaluation system uses TaroWorks in this way to collect and track data about the delivery of our program’s five components: targeting, business, and financial literacy training, seed capital disbursements, mentoring, and formation of savings groups. Zita, along with other Village Enterprise managers, uses the data to evaluate program implementation and staff performance. The use of TaroWorks increases staff technological competency, making them more competitive in the job market, and exposes poorer rural communities to the power of technology.

With over 80% female entrepreneurs in the Village Enterprise program, Zita understands the significant role technological innovation can play in pursuing gender equality and believes that the TaroWorks platform is the key to jumpstarting this pursuit. She describes its role in her own words below.

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Sometimes I sit and imagine what our office would be like if we did not have TaroWorks –it would be filled with paperwork. Every staff member uses the platform, whether it be registering entrepreneurs, completing business grants, or monitoring training session attendance. TaroWorks is the critical engine in our adaptive management system. It enables our business mentors to track our entrepreneur’s small businesses’ health on the dashboards and prioritize mentoring entrepreneurs who are struggling. The system allows for the collection of data in real-time and increased transparency in information sharing. It has improved the efficiency of our program as well as overall confidence in decision-making.

Technology is power in this present era. Most individuals living in rural areas of East Africa—especially women—have limited exposure to technology, which intensifies the correlation between lack of technological access and poverty. Village Enterprise’s program addresses this problem with our business mentors’ ability to demonstrate business health data on tablets to entrepreneurs in the field, thus introducing women to technology they otherwise would not have access to. We observed an increase in mobile phone ownership among entrepreneurs after being exposed to technology through the Village Enterprise program, demonstrating increased comfort with and confidence in digital literacy and skills.

The use of technology in the field also benefits our staff, both in terms of their own skill growth and in their ability to perform their jobs at increasingly high levels of effectiveness. It is nearly impossible to find a quality job in Uganda or Kenya unless you are technologically competent. The use of TaroWorks acts as a form of professional development that will make our field staff more competitive within the Kenyan and Ugandan job markets. And through technology, our staff is empowered to give informed advice and support to our entrepreneurs.

In turn, the technology we deploy, along with our staff’s technological skills, leads to improved business success and technological awareness for our entrepreneurs, most of whom are women. 

One of the ways that Village Enterprise’s use of technology supports our entrepreneurs—mainly women—is in helping with schedule tracking. In Africa, women are responsible for the majority of household duties. Many of our female entrepreneurs report feeling overwhelmed with household duties, taking care of their children, and pursuing business ventures; understandably, they often have a difficult time tracking their business goals in addition to caring for their families. Our mentors can use TaroWorks to illustrate a business group’s performance relative to their targets. By showing them their progress, we also remind them of their participation responsibilities. Entrepreneurs are not allowed to miss more than two training sessions before they are expelled from the program. Business mentors use TaroWorks to monitor training attendance and inform entrepreneurs if they missed a training session. These reminders allowed us to re-engage over 1,100 Ugandan female entrepreneurs in 2019-2020 who might not have otherwise realized they missed a training session.

Economic equality is a lofty dream and will remain a dream as long as we fail to look upon ourselves as members of a global nation. Technology presents us with opportunities to work as one, connecting all people—regardless of gender—with collective growth opportunities. TaroWorks is just the start, but we must continue innovating until every individual has an equal shot at sustained success.

The post Technology is Power appeared first on Village Enterprise.

Before the war, Rashid had a prosperous life in South Sudan—he grew food on his own plot of land and also ran a small shop that brought in enough income to support his growing family (he and his wife have six children ranging in age from 6 to 20). But when the civil war that displaced more than two million people across his country came too close to home, Rashid and his family had to leave everything they had behind. With violence encroaching on their small village, they fled carrying just a few personal belongings—clothes, bedsheets, and some food. The family ultimately arrived at Rhino Camp, a refugee settlement in northwestern Uganda, in 2017. And while they were eager to put down new roots, their struggles were unfortunately far from over.

Uganda hosts Africa’s largest refugee population. With limited resources, basic necessities like food and clean drinking water are out of reach for far too many people here, Ugandans and refugees alike. While those who make it to Rhino Camp may have a home, building a life is a more daunting challenge.

When they first arrived, Rashid and his family lived in a grass-thatched home, which was immensely difficult during the rainy season, when water poured right in. He was frustrated that his children were unable to make much progress in their very overcrowded schools; the whole family dealt with sickness and getting enough to eat. He used the little money he had from South Sudan to open a small shop selling beans and maize, but did not have enough capital to sustain the business. Like so many refugees, Rashid and his family were at first largely dependent on food assistance from humanitarian organizations. While this crucial aid is often lifesaving in the short term, Rashid wanted a sustainable solution that would allow him and his family to put their skills to work and provide for themselves, rather than remain dependent on assistance that might not always be there.

Rashid took a major step in this direction when he was selected to join a business training program run by Village Enterprise. The training helped Rashid develop skills in money management and savings, and concluded with a grant to help him sustain his own small business, including buying new goods and supplies. Identifying a need in the community for hardware, he started selling nails and other materials people needed to build and repair their homes. Since then, he’s not only been able to keep the business going, but has earned enough money to build a new, more sustainable home for his own family, and to send his children to low-cost private schools at the camp, where he is now pleased with the progress they are making in their education.

A new kind of humanitarian partnership

The training Rashid attended was part of a pilot between Village Enterprise and Mercy Corps that tested whether combining our two organizations’ skills and experiences could help us reach more people and secure longer-lasting outcomes.

The Delivering Resilient Enterprises and Market Systems (DREAMS) for Refugees program brings together two evidence-based models: Village Enterprise’s focus on poverty graduation (lifting people out of poverty) and Mercy Corps’ expertise in market systems development—identifying profitable, sustainable avenues for refugees to build economic self-sufficiency.

Village Enterprise’s poverty graduation approach serves the most vulnerable refugees, helping them build a base level of income by providing training, mentoring, seed capital grants, and savings groups such as the one Rashid participated in. Through this method, we engage some of the hardest-to-reach people, those even other humanitarian groups on the ground often don’t serve.

Meanwhile, Mercy Corps’ market systems development approach focuses on the next step: they work with the private sector to understand the needs of refugees and identify opportunities for them to build and grow their own businesses. Mercy Corps connects refugees to the market-based services necessary to help their businesses thrive, including fostering connections to suppliers and buyers to help them get the goods they need, as well as creating connections to financial services and access to land.

Each of these approaches has helped lift many refugees out of poverty, but neither can reach all refugees. The poverty graduation model is proven to support people in escaping extreme poverty, but without access to strong and inclusive markets, there is the question of how graduates can grow beyond their initial micro-enterprises. Conversely, the market systems development model has been shown to increase income and strengthen the livelihoods of refugees, but it cannot always reach those who do not yet have enough income and resources to consider starting a business. So we hypothesized that our approaches would be even more effective when combined.

With the DREAMS program, we combine these two approaches, first helping refugees graduate out of poverty through a sequenced set of activities designed to launch and sustain their microenterprises, then supporting them to scale those businesses by connecting them to dynamic markets, while further integrating them into their host communities. This integrated approach helps ensure that they not only have the chance to get ahead but also the financial security to avoid slipping back into poverty.

The next level

That initial iteration of DREAMS took place in the refugee settlement where Rashid lives, as well as two other settlements in Uganda. Now we’re planning to take this to the next level, expanding the program in Uganda and also bringing this solution to Ethiopia, another country with a large refugee population. DREAMS will help transform thousands of lives among the more than two million refugees who live in these two countries – especially women, youth,and others living in extreme poverty.

Why hasn’t this type of partnership happened before? The truth is, current humanitarian models and approaches aren’t really designed for the full scope of challenges that these refugee populations face. Refugee responses are typically short term, providing much-needed, but limited assistance such as emergency food or cash. Conversely, job training programs often focus on providing basic skills to small groups of people and are not necessarily aligned with local market needs. What we are doing now, by connecting each of our organizations, is building a more holistic, systemic model that is adapted to the realitiesof refugees living in long-term displacement.

This new phase of the program is designed to reach 30,000 households across Uganda and Ethiopia, impacting more than 150,000 lives. Crucially, working together leverages our two organizations’ strengths and areas of expertise to help us reach more people with more support. We don’t need to become jacks-of-all-trades if we can work together in ways that play to our strengths. Covid‑19 has only upped the urgency for these types of partnerships. Millions more people are facing humanitarian crisis situations due to the pandemic, and they need solutions that will help them survive immediately and support them in building economic self-sufficiency.

Our commitment to invest in and scale up a series of breakthrough solutions

The rising popularity of big bet philanthropy—investments of $10 million or more in ideas meant to create transformative solutions to deep-seated social problems—is largely a response to a recognized need to connect the dots between the ideas needed to solve these big challenges, and the investment needed to make those ideas a reality. By bringing our two groups’ combined decades of experience together to provide holistic long-term solutions, DREAMS represents a totally new model of approaching global poverty. Not only is this program on course to assist many thousands of people, but this successful evidence-based model can be replicated by other humanitarian groups around the world.

With this in mind, we’re extremely honored that Village Enterprise, Mercy Corps, and IDinsight (a global advisory, data analytics,and research organization that serves as the external evaluator for this program) have been named one of five finalists for the Larsen Lam ICONIQ Impact Award. This brand new initiative was launched in January 2020 by philanthropists Chris Larsen and Lyna Lam, and the Sea Grape Foundation, with support from ICONIQ Impact and Lever for Change, to identify actionable ideas that will transform the lives of refugees and displaced people. In addition to the opportunity to compete for the $12 million prize, finalists also will receive technical support and expertise from the Bridgespan Group and Lever for Change.

We’re excited to take the lessons learned from this successful pilot and scale up in a big way. By combining the expertise of our two organizations, we have unlocked a new and exciting model that has the potential to transform millions of lives. It’s a sustainable solution that will help refugees around the world to use their skills, follow their ambitions, and build their own dreams.

The post A Big Bet on Helping Refugees Build their Dreams appeared first on Village Enterprise.

Christine is among 86,000 Ugandans who are diagnosed with tuberculosis annually. Uganda is one of the 30 World Health Organization designated countries with a high burden of tuberculosis infection. Although nearly all public hospitals in Uganda offer tuberculosis medication for free, individuals living with this disease cite the associated non-medical costs as catastrophic.

The combined cost of transportation, food, nutritional supplements, and other non-medical expenditures accounted for the largest share of total disease related costs at 60%. Christine, like many Ugandans living with tuberculosis, struggled to afford the costs associated with hiring a caretaker and the cost of transportation to retrieve her medicine.

This is her story.

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My name is Arach Christine.

My husband died at the hands of Karamojong Cattle Rustlers a long time ago. I have five children. As a single mother with no means to fend for my own life let alone my kids, I decided to go back to the home of my parents. However, my family instead sent me back to my marital home that was inherited by my brother-in-law and whom I was now expected to marry.

After we got married, I gave birth to another child. My new husband battered me. I tried to run away with my children and move back in with my parents, but they had passed away. I reached out to my uncle who refused to take me in saying that since I was married, my duty was to tend to my husband. Disappointed and frustrated, with nowhere to go, I went back to him. 

It was then when my luck worsened.

In 1998, I was diagnosed with tuberculosis. Pregnant with my third child, I was taken to the nearest hospital where I stayed for three months. Nearly 20 years passed and I had two more children with my husband. In January 2019 I was re-diagnosed with tuberculosis and, this time, spent six months at the hospital while my five children were in the care of my mother-in-law. I had no family members to visit and care for me, only surviving on the goodwill of other patient’s caretakers. 

When I was discharged from the hospital, I returned to my village and sought help from the village leaders. The leaders provided me with a compound of land where I could build a hut to live apart from my husband and recover from my disease. My luck was improving, however, I was still unable to earn a sustainable living. I spent every shilling I had on materials to build my hut and to pay any expenses for my children. I could not afford the transportation cost to refill my tuberculosis medication from the hospital in town and often missed pills when the bottle became empty.

My story would remain the same until last year when I enrolled in the Village Enterprise program. This program was the beginning of the end of my troubles. For the first time, I developed friendships with other women where I felt comfortable sharing stories of my life. In return, I heard many touching stories from women whose experiences were similar to mine. I was trained on different business skills and ideas. Most importantly, I learned how to save with a purpose.

With the grant money provided by Village Enterprise, I was able to start a retail business with two other women. Together, we sell produce like bananas, jackfruit and maize meal.  I saved enough money to buy three bags of cement to build the structure of my hut, where I now live with my children. I am now saving up money to buy goats and cows. I hope to make enough money from these animals to provide even more for my children.I no longer had to skip my tuberculosis medication as I was able to borrow money from my business savings group to transport myself to the hospital when my medication ran out. With the money I made from my business, I was able to afford nutritious food which helped in my journey to full recovery. In August of 2020, my doctors told me that I had recovered from tuberculosis and advised me to return in six months to get tested for symptoms of relapse. If not for the grace of my Village Enterprise business savings group, I don’t think I would’ve recovered from this disease. 

I thank Village Enterprise for providing me with the resources to improve my life and help me rewrite my story. 

The post The Hidden Cost of Illness appeared first on Village Enterprise.