Economic Empowerment for Pastoralist Women:
A Comparative Look at Experience in Somaliland, Sudan & Uganda

PENHA – Pastoral and Environmental Network in the Horn
of Africa.

PENHA has a longstanding commitment to gender equality.

Gender inequality is generally much sharper in pastoralist
communities than it is elsewhere. Women Pastoralists are
the marginalised of the marginalised.

Until recently, pastoral development NGOs neglected
gender and almost exclusive focused on water supply,
animal health, and pastoral land tenure.

Presently, there is consensus is that gender equality is
central to development. Hence more attention is being
paid to gender.
1.
The Program
 PENHA is implementing a women’s economic empowerment
program - covering selected pastoralist and agro-pastoralist
communities in Uganda, Somaliland and Sudan.
1.1
Program Aims & Goals
 Increase access to credit – making women more “bankable”
and linking them up with finance providers.
 Increase women’s access to (business-related) information
 Increase women’s participation in business networks
Ultimately:
 Help women to increase their independent incomes, from
existing and new activities
 Promote female-owned and other SMEs that employ women
1.2
Program Components
 Business Skills Training
 Strengthening Women’s Groups
 Grants for rotating funds and re-tooling with assets
(exotic goats, sewing machines, etc.)
 “Upstream” work with business networks, “meso-level” actors &
policymakers
1.3
Analytical Work
 Socio-Economic Baseline Studies
 examining local conditions, for program design, M&E and
policy work.
 Value Chain Studies
 to identify interventions that can …
… increase women’s mark-ups (profit margins) in existing
value
chains
… or enable them to enter new markets.
1.4
Areas of Operation – Where We Are Working

Uganda – the semi-arid Cattle Corridor
(Ssembabule, Mbarara & Kabale districts in the West,
Teso & Karamoja in the East)

Somaliland – Awdal, Togdheer & Sanaag districts

Kassala State in Eastern Sudan (bordering Eritrea)

Socio-economic conditions differ widely
- but there are some basic commonalities
The Pastoral Context
Acute Women’s Subordination:
 very low social status for women,
 high levels female illiteracy- very limited access to education and
training for women and girls
 very restricted roles in public life,
 restricted ownership of livestock (cattle and camels) – the main
store of wealth in pastoral economies.
 limited liberty for women to travel
 early and / or forced marriages
 harmful traditional practices (polygamy, “wife sharing” in Uganda,
FGM in Somaliland)
 “bride price” that encourage people to view women as property.
(In a recent meeting with the Karamojong Turkana and Pokot,
pastoralists one of the men present referred to women as
“income generating activities”
2.1
Women’s Empowerment in the Pastoral Context
 Without accompanying social change, increased incomes for
women will not bring gender equality (instances of women
surrendering their incomes to men and the extra workload and
responsibilities)
 Winning the support of men is vital – empowering women
does not necessarily mean “dis-empowering men”
For pastoralist women, empowerment involves several mutually
reinforcing elements:
 Education – not only basic literacy and numeracy but formal
education too.
 Access to information
 Independent incomes
 Securing women’s human rights and the right to own property
2.2
Obstacles to Local Economic Growth and Business
 Poor transport and telecommunications infrastructure
 Lack of, or poor, connection to national power grids
 Irregular and seasonal incomes
 Remoteness and low population densities (dispersed
populations)
 Very low cash incomes and thin local markets
 Insecurity of land tenure and ownership
 Conflict and endemic violence (in Karamoja, Teso and parts of
2.3
Social and Economic Change
– Trends towards Sedentarization and Urbanization
 Pastoralists are living more settled lives - in and around towns
and trading centres.
 Some maintain their pastoral livelihoods, while settling their
families.
 Some settle by choice, others by force of circumstances (loss
of land, livestock, livelihoods).
 For some livings standards fall, for others they improve.
New Opportunities for women:
 For many girls, more settled lives offer new educational
opportunities.
 Growing towns and trading centers mean increased
opportunities for economic diversification and service
provision.
 New public investments – schools, hospitals and roads –
provide new business opportunities for women.
New activities in towns and trading centres:
 Hairdressing and beauty salons
 Dressmaking and making uniforms and sweaters for schools
 Catering for weddings and social events
 Catering and snack shops for schools and hospitals
 Producing packaged, higher-quality honey for distant, urban
markets.
 Processing milk – higher-quality ghee and yoghurt - for urban
markets
 Juicemaking
 Retail shopkeeping
 Video shacks – showing English Premier League soccer and
Hollywood films.
This is in addition to the traditional economic activities listed
below:
Traditional activities:
 Growing cereals, grains, vegetables and fruit on small plots
 Rearing small stock (goats and sheep)
 Milk sales and processing (making ghee)
 Beekeeping and honey production
 Making crafts for the tourist market
 Teashops (Somaliland) and small retail shops
 Beer brewing and sales (Uganda) [Note: In Karamoja there is
a trade-off between increased women’s incomes from beer
brewing and the growing social problem of alcoholism –it has
reached a crisis point]
3.1
Moving up the Value Chain
 Women can move up the value chain, improving the quality of
their goods and services.
 Women-owned enterprises are successfully marketing
yoghurt, honey, and juices to supermarkets in capital cities.
 With support, they can access export markets.
 Most SMEs are owned by educated and politically connected
businesswomen, often with successful husbands.
 Formally registered women’s groups can grow into
cooperatives, run as shareholder businesses, and move up
the value chain.
3.1.1 Key Points from Value Chain Studies
 Middlemen’s mark-ups are often very high – few middlemen
means little competition.
 Group marketing increases women’s bargaining power.
 Ability to supply goods reliably and at sufficient scale is crucial
– cooperatives can achieve this.
 Mobile phones and radios increase women’s access to
business information and strengthen women’s bargaining
position.
 Upgrading skills can help women to move up the value chain
 Lack of collateral/credit limits women’s ability to purchase or
lease processing equipment and add value “at source”.
 Transport (high costs and limited availability) is a key
constraint.
 The “outgrower” model - women’s groups trained & equipped
to supply goods to an entrepreneur who can export - can
increase incomes for larger numbers of women.
 Opportunities for web-based marketing of crafts - authentic
3.2
Access to Credit and Productive Assets
Uganda:
 Local MFIs and banks in nearby towns
 Women still find it difficult to get loans
Obstacles cited by women:
 Lack of collateral - few own land
 Need husbands’ signatures in order to get a loan
 Small size of loans available: cannot buy capital equipment
 Seasonal incomes - but MFIs demand monthly repayments
Somaliland:
 a handful of NGO microcredit programs – loans too small
Sudan:
 No local finance institutions
 No NGO microcredit schemes
3.2.1
New Sources of Finance
Somaliland:
 Dahabshil money transfer company - only major financial
institution.
 Remittances - central to the economy, but largely spent on
consumption (chewing khat, a mild stimulant), not investment and
going mainly to urban and settled communities.
 Mobile phone money transfers and Telesom’s “Zaad Services”
payments system, with limited phone banking facilities (up to
$3,000).
Mobile Phone Banking:
 Great potential in pastoral areas, with distant banks and high
transport costs.
 Phone ownership (and access to phones owned by others) is
widespread in Western Uganda and growing in rural Somaliland.
 No such opportunities currently exist in pastoral areas of Kassala.
4.
Business Skills Training – Some Issues
Uganda:
 Different literacy levels in one group - challenging for
facilitators.
 More sophisticated businesswomen have different needs:
 higher-level training
 business development services (on-going advice and support)
Somaliland:
 Literate group members can help the illiterate
 Women have surprisingly wide informational networks and
raise very specific questions
Sudan:
 70% of the women involved are illiterate
 Women have had very little access to information
 Elementary level of training
 Training in generic business skills was more than training in
technical skills.
Reason- the value of those skills is likely to diminish fairly
rapidly as relative thin markets become saturated and the
margins are driven down.
 Where women have little experience in public life, cohesive
women groups can play a pivotal role.
 Groups build and reinforce social capital –necessary as
guarantee for credit for women without collateral.
 Facilitates group savings which can be used as revolving
funds within the group with manageable interest.
 Self confidence is built / strengthened and this is a necessary
condition for entrepreneurship.
 Women’s groups help to mitigate women’s time poverty.
 Husbands feel “more secure” if their wives go to market their
products in groups- this also reduces male ridicule from peers.
4.1
Lessons from Business Skills Training
 Need to focus on adult literacy training
 Need to develop high-quality audio-visual training and
information materials
 (IPA is conducting randomized controlled trials (RCTs) on the
use of financial literacy videos with women’s groups in Peru)
 Need for women’s resource centers for training and access to
radio, TV & video.
 Participants want skills training for specific enterprises, plus
grants or loans for equipment and productive assets.
 Training workshops provide opportunities for broader
discussion of women’s roles and promote acceptance of
women in public life.
Women’s Groups
 Few tangible benefits from business skills training on its own
 Combining business skills training with grants for rotating
funds or productive assets delivers real benefits for poor
pastoralist women.
 Uganda - provision of exotic goat stock, with specific training
inputs, enabled women’s groups to generate substantial new
incomes.
 Somaliland - rotating funds helped women develop a variety of
activities (small retail and tea shops, selling sheep) and
increased their incomes substantially.
 Additional income used for school fees, medical expenses,
personal consumption.
 Intangible benefits - increased confidence & visibility, public
validation of women’s role in business.
 In Kassala State - no significant economic benefits yet, but the
program built support among husbands and traditional leaders
for greater women’s participation in economic life.
6.
The Need for Rigorous Evaluations
 Studies around the world
- mixed evidence on the effectiveness of business skills
training
- some support for business skills training plus grants/loans for
productive assets.
 Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) rigorously compare
outcomes with groups receiving support against similar groups
that do not receive support.
 RCTs - a promising new approach that can help to identify
what works, and what does not work.
 NGOs can collaborate with universities and research
institutions on RCTs and on qualitative, context-specific
studies.
7.
Concluding Observations
 Business skills training for women’s groups can be effective,
when combined with grants for rotating funds and productive
assets.
 Such programs deliver real benefits, but promoting medium
and large scale enterprises that employ women can deliver
real change.
 The overall business environment matters- business friendly
tax regimes and regulatory policies, a supportive frame-work
for regional and international trade.
 Getting girls in school, and enhancing the quality of education
offered, can bring transformational change.
 Adult literacy programs and programs that increase
access to information are vital.
Strong women’s groups can help pastoralist women to
participate more effectively in economic and public life.
With rapid social and economic change in pastoral areas,
there is an urgent need to document and analyze changes.
NGOs and researchers need to step up their efforts to
support pastoralist communities.
7.1
Linking up the grassroots & policy levels
 Achieving real change at the local level requires:
• actions at the policy level
(education, infrastructure, trade, taxes)
• working with higher level business networks
(attracting investors)
Finally:
Right now:

pastoral women are economically active

we are supporting them in their own initiatives
In the long run, the fundamentals are:

getting pastoralist girls into schools

transport & telecommunications
infrastructure.
END