The Women’s Initiative Fund (WIF) worked to improve the situation of The project creates income and employment opportunities for women and their families by supporting the establishment and expansion of viable businesses.
low income women and their families in Upper Egypt through supporting them to start-up small and microenterprises. Funded by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and implemented in Egypt by FIT in cooperation with the Women’s Affairs Directorate of the Ministry of Social Affairs (MOSA), the project succeeded in creating income generation and employment opportunities among some of the most marginalised communities in Egypt.
The WIF Project was designed to address women's barriers to economic empowerment in Upper Egypt. Lacking both credit and business expertise, women had few opportunities to improve the socio-economic situations of their families or themselves. In 1990, WIF first began operating in the governorate of Qena in order to find innovative, cost effective responses to these needs. Following the successful completion of this phase in 1995, the project was expanded to include the governorate of Aswan.
The WIF project developed a pioneering approach to small and micro enterprise support services for low-income women and their families. Through the provision of both financial (credit) and non-financial (training and technical assistance) services, WIF was the first initiative to reach low-income women with little or no previous business experience in Upper Egypt. Careful client selection and preparation along with detailed feasibility studies, business planning, procurement advice, production line layout and post loan follow up all helped to ensure that clients had the greatest possible chance for success. A wide range of businesses were supported through WIF, opening new areas for women in Upper Egypt such as small scale manufacturing in metals, plastics and chemicals as well as services and trade activities. By helping women become new entrepreneurs, WIF helped create employment not only for the new business owners themselves but also for many more women and men who work within the new businesses. Typically five or more employment positions are created through each business. As the loans provided to women are essentially unsecured it is through helping women succeed in their business ventures that risks in repayment are minimize.
The WIF project has become recognized for its innovative work that focuses specifically on the processes in starting new enterprises with new entrepeneurs through a combination of training and technical assistance coupled with improved access to credit. WIF also provides micro credit lending services to existing women-owned micro enterprises that operate largely in the informal sector.