Millennials en las empresas.

The findings of the study show that women entrepreneurs who own MSEs have the potential as economic promoters to maintain a better family life and prove their agency

as economic actors. In both survivalist and growth-oriented MSEs, women entrepreneurs strive to sustain and support their families while also working to expand their business enterprises. As observed, positive impacts were registered at household, business and individual levels on most of the indicators. In Addis Ababa, the women unemployment rate was more than double compared to men. The number of women residents is higher compared to men residents in Addis Ababa. Job opportunities and the new jobs created in the economy are very limited in absorbing the work force in Addis Ababa. The historical inequality among men and women as well as discriminatory policy frameworks perpetuates the gender gaps (women were discriminated against by gender insensitive frameworks and practices). The Ethiopian constitution calls for affirmative measures for women; the national women development policy and strategy gives due attention to women‘s economic empowerment in Ethiopia. The Ethiopian National MSEs Development Strategy focuses on the development of MSEs as the base for medium and large industry development of the nation, though it does not identify survivalist and growth-oriented MSEs as policy focus and resourcing. This policy also boasts of being pro-poor in nature and targets the excluded sections from the formal labour force. However, it does not implement affirmative actions that benefit women and redress the historical inequalities of women, though putting a women agenda at the centre of economic development helps not only women, but also family, society and the economy.

Besides this, the national policies and strategies that target women were not effectively implemented in respective institutions such as the Ethiopian Women Policy and the Ethiopian Women‘s Development Package. Therefore, from the findings and the conclusions above, the study recommends the following for better results to be registered in future interventions.

5.4.1. Improving institutions, policy, strategy and planning

Most of the respondents were above the age category of 25. This implies that microfinance institutions may exclude economically active work members (18-25) due to collateral requirements. If these age categories are excluded, it may contribute to the persistence of women‘s dependence on men, exclusion from economic benefits and may lead to overall subordination and discrimination in societies. This is one of the focus areas that need government intervention in terms of designing affirmative

schemes and maintain inclusive microfinance services for all economically active women in the city. Government support is relatively low for women entrepreneurs in the MSEs sectors. One of the support areas, for instance, is TVET and skills training. The percentage of technical and vocational training, college and university graduate women entrepreneurs is low. Women participants in the TVET training need to be encouraged and government work on this skill development is needed since TVET and skill training enhances the performance of MSEs. The other support area is working premises for production and selling. These are the main constraints of MSEs.

Most of the MSEs owned by women were located in residential houses, open markets, streets and by moving from one place to another. Government tries to avail production and working premises for MSEs owners – but no affirmative framework is in place to benefit women and reduce their historical inequalities. Working premise related costs are high and drain the capital for house renting, reversing business decline, facilitating market networking and accessing raw materials. In this respect, the number of branches especially for NGO and private affiliated microfinance institutions should be expanded to enhance the accessibility of financial services to larger numbers of women. It is essential for all responsible institutions to design women-focused institutions, institutional systems, policies and strategies by putting women issues at the centre of the agenda and women as key actors. Addressing the women‘s agenda in respective institutions may help the coherency of national and sectorial policies as well as implementation and evaluation of results. In this respect, government must design approaches to implement in a manner that benefits all citizens. Sources of finance, the responsible organ to carry out the responsibility, the integration of different organizations and the evaluation methods are essential.

The national MSEs development strategy document advocates that general attention be paid to women. However, the strategy must critically include the affirmative actions granted to women in general and women entrepreneurs owning MSEs in particular in areas of financing, training and skill development, provision of production and selling premises, promotion of market networking and the accomplishment of the overall long and short time objectives. Otherwise, it may be very difficult for interventions to abolish the historical legacy of inequality and discrimination suffered by women. In this respect, gender mainstreaming is needed by the institutions of women and the stakeholders working on women empowerment. Addis Ababa Women and Children Affairs Bureau is

expected to design the guidelines that help the respective institutions to channel the financial and non-financial resources to women entrepreneurs who own MSEs.

Microfinance institutions are expected to design women focused policies and strategies to address the bottlenecks that limit women entrepreneurs who own MSEs in accessing financial services. These may include designing loan programs allocated or percentage of loan portfolios dedicated to women-owned micro and small businesses other than women enterprises development programs funded by UN, or any NGO programs. Designing technical and management assistance and training to micro and small business owner women entrepreneurs before and after loan disbursement, and consultancy and counselling programs specifically for micro and small business owner women entrepreneurs enhances their visibility while also ensuring the proper targeting and representation of beneficiaries from historically excluded categories and supported by the 1995 Constitution of Ethiopia. The institutions and stakeholders that use both MFIs and MSEs in particular in designing schemes for reporting challenges of micro and small women-owned businesses to policy makers and special financial services schemes to help micro and small owner women entrepreneurs. The special schemes include reducing the minimum compulsory saving requirements, adjustment of the collateral requirement or collateral free loans, women focused insurance schemes to minimize or avoid vulnerability and failure of women micro and small businesses, women focused loan terms and a flexible repayment system, and women‘s legal advisory services.

5.4.2. Bringing MSEs agenda to the centre

Ethiopia‘s Growth and Transformational Plan II, GTP II, paid due attention to women economic, political and social development. Based on the National Growth and Transformation Plan, institutions in their own sectors and areas of influence are expected to design national micro and small women business development strategies (by engage all stakeholders) and by giving women the opportunity to access intervention benefits equally – now and in the future. These may include, among the others, designing women MSEs supportive national strategies and policy, establishing a national forum on women micro and small business development and setting agendas to be addressed, indicating the responsibility and accountability of different stakeholders including private sector, government and non-governmental organizations and

periodically evaluate the accomplishment of the pre-set action plan. The recommendations in this sub section also refer to creating awareness on the contribution of women economic empowerment, identifying different cultural barriers to women owners of MSEs and designing the way to address the challenges by bringing together all stakeholders, integrating available resources to minimize or avoid resource duplication, designing the national strategy on women businesses management capacity building programs and designing national women MSEs marketing, input supply, technology development and experience sharing strategy to network women businesses. To implement these recommendations and review the benefits obtained from national women business strategy implementation and to ensure that women are actually benefitting from any program intervention, there must be a national strategy that guides financial institutions to target women business enterprises and clearly articulate MSEs, woman‘s business issues and the demands that need a political intervention and push for them to be set as policy agenda.