ENTREPRENEURS - (July 2011 to December 2013)
Location within Country
Sindh
Name of Associated Agencies
USAID, MEDA
Context
Rural and urban poor entrepreneurs, especially women in Pakistan,
generally remain trapped in a low value-added vicious circle,
producing cheap products for local markets and earning small amounts
of money for subsistence living. Typically, they have little
knowledge and awareness of how markets work and are often taken
advantage of by more mobile, perceptive and monopolistic
intermediaries. They also lack access to credit products and have
little hope of reaching higher value markets. Women are especially
vulnerable given their generally marginalised status in society,
broad discrepancies in their social standing compared to men, low
levels of literacy and education, restricted mobility and ability to
interact with other people and limited economic options.
Given that the market for embellished fabrics is a significant and
growing proportion of the huge Pakistani and global textile
industry, ECDI, will create a network of 80 Female Sales Agents and
will reach out and engage around 4000 poor women embroiderers in
this value chain. These FSAs will purchase embellished fabrics from
poor producers to sell it to retailers, wholesalers, and other
buyers in the middle to high-value urban markets. As part of these
transactions, FSAs will embed product information, quality control
and contemporary designs into their sales services to enhance the
poor WEs’ quality and productivity and strengthen the product
offering. Additionally, the availability of contemporary designs
will be strengthened as FSAs purchase new designs from both formal
designers and tracer designers to disseminate to the producers. The
result will be a product that more appropriately matches the demands
of middle-class consumers in Pakistan and resulting increased
incomes for poor WEs.
.
Objectives of the project
The main objective of ECDI’s endeavour in the USAID financed project
is to raise the incomes of 4000 poor Women Embellishers (WEs) across
Sindh by replicating and building on the learning of its Female
Sales Agent (FSA) Model developed in the Behind the Veil Project (BtV).
ECDI’S Primary role in the project
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Community
Mobilization
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Training and
Development
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Networking
-
Monitoring and
Evaluation
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Creation of New
Value Chain Actor
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Market
Development and Linkage Creation
-
E-Marketing
