MAYOUX, L. (2003)
Trickle-Down, Trickle-up or Puddle? Participatory Value Chains Analysis for Pro-Poor Enterprise Development
http:///www.enterprise-impact.org.uk/informationresources/toolbox/valuechainsanalysis.shtml
value chains analysis/ impact assessment/ Fair
Trade/ Corporate Social Responsibility/ ethical
enterprise/ enabling environments/ PALS/
Most enterprise development agencies now have an
explicit commitment to pro poor growth. At the
same time there is an increasingly understanding
of the complexities of what pro- poor enterprise
development might mean, and how it might be achieved.
There is now increasing consensus that there is
no ' magic bullet ' for pro-poor growth but the
need for a range of strategies at different levels
including: targeted micro-level support for micro-enterprise,
general enterprise support to stimulate the private
sector, macro-level national and international
policies to protect the interests of employees
and poor entrepreneurs, effective social policies.
This multi-dimensional, multi-stakeholder approach
to enterprise development poses new challenges
for impact assessment.
This paper discusses one possible tool: value chains
analysis and how it can be adapted for participatory,
multistakeholder assessments. Value chains analysis
can be used as a sort of meta- framework for in-depth
research and one-off external impact assessments.
As discussed in detail in the paper, rigorous quantification
or qualitative investigation of any or all of the
dimensions of value chains analysis above may be
complex and difficult to assess, depending on the
particular context or sector being investigated.
Like any process of participatory action research,
participatory value chains analysis is also no
panacea for all the problems of enterprise development
and poverty reduction.
Nevertheless, despite its shortcomings, value chains
analysis does have considerable potential as a
focus for setting up ongoing structures for accountability
and empowerment as part of a participatory and
sustainable learning process. Where treated sensitively
and effectively facilitated, participatory value
chains analysis is useful in:
· identifying
the potential range of different types of intervention
at different levels which might be possible,
· providing a
broad benchmark framework with which to bring together
the different stakeholders to identify and track
their common or conflicting perspectives and to
track contextual changes.
· providing a
common methodology and diagram language which can
provide the basis for ongoing and sustainable learning
by and between stakeholders to inform decision-making
and policy.
The final section outlines some guidelines which
can help address some of the inherent challenges
which will inevitably be encountered in the participatory
process.
MAYOUX, L. (2003)
From Marginalisation to Empowerment: Towards a New Approach in Small Enterprise Development
http://www.intercooperation.ch/sed/2003/wks-sed-and-empowerment/presentations/mayoux.pdf
enterprise development/ empowerment/ pro-poor development/
enabling environments/ ethical enterprise
In the late 1990s, and particularly in the current
century, there has been increasing international agreement
on the importance of ' pro-poor growth '. There has
also been increasing agreement that any coherent strategy
for pro-poor growth and wealth creation must include
small enterprise development. However small enterprise
development is not necessarily pro-poor. Small enterprises
are very diverse and small entrepreneurs include not
only extremely poor people but also skilled consultants
like the author, with very different opportunities
and constraints. Power relations are integral to the
ways in which economic negotiations are conducted at
all levels. Class, gender and ethnic inequalities in
power and resources are key determinants of which people
are able to take advantage of economic supply and demand
factors, and of the relative balance between market
supply and demand itself. They therefore determine
where values are allocated at different levels of production
and market chains. Ultimately most markets within which
small-scale entrepreneurs operate are structured by
international inequalities in bargaining power and
resources in International ‘Free’ Trade
Agreements which continue protection for large-scale
Northern interests.
Empowerment must therefore be an integral part of any
strategy for pro-poor growth. Small enterprise development
which does not include strategies to address power
inequalities is unlikely to be successful in benefiting
significant numbers of poor people. Most will continue
to be consigned to insecure, low income subsistence
enterprises. The very poor are likely to be even further
disadvantaged through increasingly unequal competition
in the markets on which they depend for survival. This
is not only a disaster for people themselves. It also
slows local and national economic development, not
only of the small-scale agricultural and enterprise
sectors, but the medium and large enterprises which
depend on them for inputs, production and local distribution.
Small enterprise development which does not address
empowerment concerns will also fail to comply with
the cross-cutting commitments of development agencies.
However, although the term ‘empowerment’ is frequently found in official documents and programme promotional material, the implications of an empowerment approach to small enterprise development has rarely been thought through. This paper attempts to provide a basis for initiating a debate. Part 1 provides an overview of debates about small enterprise development and empowerment. Part 2 then proposes a strategic framework for an empowerment approach small enterprise development and the implications for different areas of SED intervention. The paper focuses particularly on the ‘wealth creation needs’ of
very poor entrepreneurs, particularly very poor women,
who are being excluded from or increasingly marginalised
by current small enterprise development policy.
MAYOUX, L. (2000)
Jobs, Gender, and Small Enterprises: Getting the Policy Environment Right
ILO Geneva
http://www.ilo.org/dyn/empent/docs/F228761170/WP15-2001.pdf
US/ UK
gender/ micro-enterprise/ enabling environments/ Ethical
enterprise
Micro and small enterprise (MSE) development for women
is currently being promoted as a key intervention for
women by governments and development agencies across
the political spectrum. This emphasis is partly because
of evidence of the rapid expansion of women’s entrepreneurship since the 1980s, and hence the increasing numerical importance of women entrepreneurs as a development constituency. Millions of women at all income levels in developing, transition and industrialized countries are setting up enterprises. In some countries women entrepreneurs now outnumber men in the small-scale sector. The numbers and scale of women’s
enterprises are increasing at a faster rate than those
of men.
Since the mid-1990s attention has increasingly focused
on how the economic, legal and social environments
can be made even more conducive to expansion and development
of the small-scale sector. Although there is a broad
consensus on the development potential of small-scale
enterprises and the importance of an enabling environment,
there are disagreements about some aspects.
· The main aims of
MSE development in the context of development as a
whole;
· Definitions of
the MSE sector and characterization of different types
of MSE;
· What is meant by environment and
categorization of different levels of environment,
generally referred to as micro-level, meso- or sectoral
level, and macro-level, and their relative prioritization
in policy intervention;
· Approach to gender,
being the ways in which gender/ issues have been (generally
rather belatedly) inserted into male/mainstream arguments.
Part I of this paper identifies three distinct paradigms
of MSE development for women underlying current debates
about best practice. Part II reviews the evidence regarding
the impact of different dimensions of economic and
social change on women’s entrepreneurship based on an analysis of existing documentation and information. It focuses particularly on material from Africa (Ghana, Cameroon, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, South Africa), South Asia (India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka), Europe (the UK, the EU’s policy), and the US. Part III argues that providing an enabling environment for women’s
enterprise will require a radical shift in conceptual
frameworks from socially responsible growth generally
confined to voluntary self-regulation by vested interests,
to socially equitable growth which provides
the necessary regulation and support for empowerment
and poverty eradication. This in turn requires a holistic
framework of integrated macro- and meso-level policies
to adequately address the multiple constraints facing
women entrepreneurs, and particularly poor women. The
final section of the paper gives details what such
a holistic framework would entail in terms of concrete
policies.
MAYOUX, L. (1995)
UNRISD Geneva
http://www.unrisd.org/unrisd/website/document.nsf/ab82a6805797760f80256b4f005da1ab/5901781754e7c91580256b67005b6af7/$FILE/opb3.pdf
gender/ micro-enterprise/enabling environments
The paper critically reviews some of the past and current
experience of micro-enterprise programmes for women:
training, credit and producer groups and co-operatives.
Although there are some successes, the evidence indicates
that the majority of programmes fail to make any significant
impact on women's incomes and cannot be assumed to
have a beneficial impact on gender inequalities.
The diversity of the small-scale sector on the one
hand and the complexity of constraints posed by poverty
and inequality on the other make the likelihood of
any 'blueprint' extremely slim. There is a very delicate
balance between the need for more effective participation,
resource-efficiency and scale.
What is clear however is that micro-enterprise cannot
be seen as the 'all-win bottom-up' solution to a wide
range of development problems as the rhetoric would
imply. It cannot be seen as a subsitute for welfare
programmes, direct efforts to support women workers
or to address gender inequalities.
MAYOUX, L. (1989).
“Income Generation for Women in India: Problems and Prospects.” Development Policy Review 7: 5-28.
India/ West Bengal/
micro-enterprise/ gender/ handicrafts/ enabling environments
In the 1980s there was a substantial change in official
government attitudes towards women's employment policy
in India. Proposals in the Five Year Plans were quite
ambitious. Measures included the modernisation of industries
preferred by women, the promotion of self-employment
through expanded credit and training schemes, and the
breaking down of barriers to women entering new occupations
through special training facilities. Nevertheless,
women were still largely ignored in general development
programmes. In practice, employment development for
women was mainly limited to 'income generation ' in
handicrafts and cottage industries through encouragement
of self-employment or various types of small-scale
organisation. This article was based on in-depth survey
and anthropological research in West Bengal over three
years. The research focused on two adjacent areas around
Santiniketan where handicrafts have been developed
and followed up as many training, credit and women's
organisation beneficiaries as could be traced in the
area. It also looked at women's work in private sector
handicrafts: bag weaving, embroidery, bamboo work and
tailoring.
The research found that the large numbers of handicraft
schemes in the area studied had failed in economic
terms. The majority of women did not continue in handicraft
production following either training (12 out of 146)
or bank loans (10 out of 100). Of the many women's
organisations started few survived any length of time
(3 out of 43). Even though most of the support was
explicitly poverty targeted, few reached very poor
women or those from Scheduled caste or Scheduled tribe
groups. The schemes had also been found to have had
minimal impact on the incomes of those women who were
involved in handicraft production and on their control
over income. This failure contrasted to the dynamic
expansion of women's employment in private sector handicraft
production for women who had not received any training
or bank loans or organisational support. Moreover much
of this expansion was through women teaching other
women skills as they married out from their natal home.
The research concluded that the failure of the government
programmes could not be attributed to lack of profitability
within industries or lack of women's enthusiasm for
income generation opportunities. The most immediately
obvious problems were found to be due to bad administration
and planning which led to ineffective targeting even
in targeted schemes, and irrelevance in the context
of the industries concerned. The paper suggests a number
of concrete ways in which the programmes could have
been improved both in terms of enabling women to earn
an income and control this income. However it is unlikely
that these changes would take place without quite far
reaching changes in the attitudes of the bureaucracy
towards women's issues and poverty alleviation in general.
Successful implementation of the schemes also requires
the target groups to be more aware and empowered to
demand their rights, both as women and as workers.
There is a need for income generation schemes to be
seen in the wider framework of the women's movement.