The Ethiopian government has been working aggressively to enhance women’s contribution to the socioeconomic transformation of the country through mainstreaming women’s issues within governmental and private organizations.
In line with this, the Ministry of Women, Children and Youths, Women Entrepreneurs Project and other organizations have been working cooperatively to ensure the participation of women in the economic aspects.
According to Assefa Ferede, Communication Director at Federal Employment Offices and Food Security Agency, the Ministry, with the aim to boost up women’s economic benefit during the past six years, a number of activities have been undertaken in various areas including in micro and small scale enterprises—construction, urban agriculture, service and trade.
In turn, out of the total 539,922 jobs created for citizens, women taken 38 percent of the jobs. As the Ministry’s report indicates, in the first six months of 2018/19 fiscal year, the Ministry in its womencentered activities, executed various activities to enhance women’s economic benefits, in collaboration with stakeholders.
In order to increase women’s participation in the economic sector, a plan has been set to address two million women, offer trainings in various income generating activities and develop the culture of saving, trade profitability among others. Consequently, over two million women have received awareness creation trainings at different levels to enable them improve the lives of themselves and their families. These types of trainings are crucial to enhance their participation and benefit them in the economic fronts, as Ministry’s report elaborates.
In turn, it has been able to boost up their economic engagements of women in various areas through enhancing their culture of savings and borrowing, build their capacity in terms of utilizing new technologies. And nearly 340 thousand women have been enabled to grasp the advantages of time and energy saving technology, according to the report. As the report stated, a plan has also been there to establish four daycare centers to enable women take care of their children while they are at workplaces.
However, it was enabled to set up 27 daycares- 16 at states and 11 at federal levels- surpassing the set targets, as the report stated. Ethiopian Women Entrepreneurship Development Project Coordinator Yohannes Solomon, for his part, said that ‘Women’s Breakthrough Project’, designed to benefit unemployed females offered trainings in various areas thereby increasing their share in the economic development of their country, it was offered to 3,000 womens so as to commence their own businesses.
Mentioning that a 6.4-million Euro grant was obtained from EU, he said the capital would be distributed to six cities in four states—in Oromia State, Ambo and Jimma, Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples’ states, Dilla and Sodo, Benishangul Gumuz state, Assosa and Gambella Town and in Gambella state), as startup capital for 3,000 graduating females presenting their business plans. “Each will receive a total of 20,000 Birr to commence their businesses, after they completed trainings offered by technical and vocational institutions of their respective areas.
“Women engaged in the activities related to trade, service delivering and other similar streams are benefitting. This is encouraging as the main objective of the project is to address the challenges faced by women in the transition from small to medium scale enterprises, he noted. Yohannes said, so far 16 thousand women have been trained and about 2.6 billion Birr offered in the form of loan is returned back from over 10, 300 women.
Currently, the level of loan provided to women has shown to 250,000 Birr. According to the Bank’s performance assessment, the project has been successful in terms of benefitting women and enhancing their economic benefit. Women’s loan repayment has reached to 98 percent, he said. In addition, the capacity of women engaged in various areas has increased in relation to creating employment opportunities for other parties. And the government is exerting utmost efforts to build the skills and knowledge of women entrepreneurs.
Sing the same tune, organizations, including the World Bank; have expressed their willingness to support the project in accordance to project’s performance. For instance, while the Italian Government has allocated 15 million USD, the Japanese Government has offered a 50-million USD loan, the coordinator said. Currently, the Ethiopian government and the European Union Investment Commission have signed a 30-million loan agreements for this same purpose, he added.
The Ethiopian Herald March 8, 2019
BY ESSEYE MENGISTE
