UK Ministerial Visit to WEDP Small Business Borrowers

7/21/2019 UK Ministerial Visit to WEDP Small Business Borrowers

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/uk-ministerial-visit-to-wedp-small-business-borrowers 1/3

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 7th July 2014

PEPE WEDP MFI loan client Mrs Desta Tadesse with Lynne Featherstone DfID Minister for Africa and the E.U.in the UK Government.Photo: Tony Storrow

The PEPE/ WEDP program in Ethiopia was pleased to host Lynne Featherstone, DfID Minister for Africa and theE.U. and Parliamentary Under Secretary of State in the UK government, on the 7th July, 2014. Minister

Featherstone visited two beneficiaries of the WEDP loan program for urban women in Kotebe, around 5 km NorthEast of Addis Ababa.

First, she met with Mrs Gebrys, a widow of 15 years who owns a large plot of land in Addis Ababa. Mrs. Gebrysproduces and sells fresh milk directly to hotels, restaurants and the general public for Birr 15 / litre (approx. $1):

Because the milk is fresh, there is no need for storage and refrigeration, and therefore no reliance on Addis Ababa’sintermittent electric power supply.

She recently took out a WEDP-financed loan to increase her herd to eight (each cow costs Birr 40,000-approx.$2,000). Part of the loan was dedicated to building a biogas plant to convert effluent to methane gas for householdcooking and lighting use – a local government requirement. The plant pipework is now about to be linked to thehouse. There is a possibility that surrounding properties can be linked and take advantage of the energy source.



Tony Storrow, PEPE/WEDP Microfinance Specialist, greets Minister Featherstone at an MFI client’s premises. Others - left to right, JohnPrimrose DfID Ethiopia PEPE liaison official, Gregory Dorey, British Ambassador to Ethiopia, Kenno Itana, WEDP Microfinance Creditspecialist.

The second client we met was Desta, who owns a clothing and shoe stall run from the back of her house. She hasbeen a client of a client of the microfinance institution, Specialized Financial Promotion Institution (‘SFPI’) , forover seven years – first as a Group Lending client (obtaining a loan with two other traders without tangiblecollateral). These group loans are typically small, and her business had prospered to a level where she wanted togo beyond the Birr 60,000 ($3,000) maximum group loan and substantially increase her inventory. As a successfulurban-based business woman she was an eminently suitable candidate for a larger, individual WEDP loan. Destaobtained a two-year loan of Birr 150,000 ($7,500), purchasing new stock from wholesalers in Mercato, the largestmarket in Addis Ababa.

These small business loans can create tremendous changes in the lives of women like Desta and Mrs. Gebrys, bothempowering them and improving their financial condition.

bout WEDP

The Women Entrepreneurship Development Programme, or WEDP, supports eight microfinance institutions (MFIs)and the Development Bank of Ethiopia with technical assistance and $42 million in lending capital to facilitatelending to urban-based, women small business owners. WEDP is a World Bank-funded project and the technicalassistance to MFIs participating in the line of credit for individual women entrepreneurs is funded under the DFIDEthiopia (DFID-E)’s Private Enterprise Programme Ethiopia (PEPE).



Documents

UK Ministerial Visit to WEDP Small Business Borrowers