Louise Dignard - Women In Micro- And Small-scale Enterprise Development

EDITED BY LouiseDignardandJosHavet

First published 1995 by Westview Press, Inc.

Published 2021 by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

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Copyright 1995 by Taylor & Francis

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Dignard, Louise, 1956- Women in micro- and small-scale enterprise development / edited by Louise Dignard and Jos Havet. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8133-8894-5 1. Women in businessDeveloping countriesCase studies. 2. Women-owned business enterprisesDeveloping countriesCase studies. 3. Small businessDeveloping countriesCase studies. 4. EntrepreneurshipDeveloping countriesCase studies. 5. Women in developmentCase studies. I. Havet, Jos, 1937- II. Title. HD6223.D537 1995 338.6'42'082dc20 95-7663 CIP A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN13: 978-0-367-21362-6 (hbk)

ISBN13: 978-0-367-21643-6 (pbk)

DOI: 10.4324/9780429267703

Experiences with conventional development strategies that emphasize large-scale interventions have revealed that such approaches may have serious limitations; in addition, the changing economic conditionsespecially since the early 1980shave further heightened the need to reexamine these strategies. Given this general context, micro- and small-scale enterprises (MSEs) in both formal and informal economic sectors are now being proposed as a new alternative for achieving sustainable socioeconomic development. Such enterprises are often generated by women, particularly in the informal sector where women account for about halfand sometimes moreof the entire sector's work force. Therefore, both in research and in development organizations, it is increasingly recognized that women's micro- and small-scale enterprises (WMSEs) can provide an opportunity to accelerate general levels of economic activity and at the same time promote a more equitable distribution of development benefits. Yet, in spite of the new sensitivity to these issues, publications dealing with WMSEs are scant: this book is among the first to specifically address the topic.

WMSE concerns constitute a virtual cross section of the main preoccupations of today's most influential approaches in international development: Women in Development (WID), bottom-up strategies, privatization and entrepreneurship, basic needs, endogenous development, appropriate technology; approaches that are all the more relevant when viewed against the backdrop of the "world economic crisis" and the prevailing structural adjustment policies. As a result, not only are WMSE concernsand their related policies and programscurrently regarded as very important, but a sense of urgency seems to beset all practitioners in the field. However, this eagerness in the sphere of practice has not been matched by equal efforts in research. Yet in the field, controversies and even competing axiomatic stands are visible. While the former are a sign of scientific dynamism, the latter are damaging because in a field so underresearched, varied and extensive, such axiomatic stands easily lead to a narrow selection of evidence not only in research but also in policy prescriptions and program implementations.

The idea of assembling this volume stems in broad terms from observing the above-described situation and, in particular, grew out of a 1987 conference on WMSEs organized in Ottawa by the Canadian International Development Agency. This conference clearly revealed the aforementioned issues, in particular the contrast between the practitioners' eagerness and sense of urgency and the large research gaps. This situation remains essentially unchanged today despite the release of several excellent studies and monographs, among others by some of the contributors to this volume. But notwithstanding their quality, these are still only scattered efforts, isolated in an extensive field. Hence the idea of assembling this volume in order to help fill the research gaps and to attempt a state-of-the-art task, while also giving to the analysis of WMSEs as much rigor as the present state of research allows.