Skills and Micro Enterprise Training for Rural Women (Ecuador)

Ecuador’s real GDP grew at 2% annually between 1980 and 2001, among the lowest in Latin America . The main reason for poor performance is weak productivity growth. Adopting the US dollar as the national currency helped control inflation. The resulting lower cost of the average consumption basket benefited the non-poor. The effects on poverty are still unknown. From 1990 to 2001, national consumption-based poverty rose from 40-45%, and the number of poor people increased from 3.5 to 5.2 million (excluding the Oriente region due to lack of data). Poverty increased by over 80% in urban areas in the Costa and Sierra, was stable in the rural Costa and rose 15% in the rural Sierra. Rapid urbanization increased the number of poor people living in urban areas from 1.1 million to 3.5 million, surpassing the number of rural poor (leading to the de facto urbanization of poverty).

High poverty rates among indigenous, Afro populations and among women are linked to poor endowments – education (especially in urban areas) and low access to land and/or access to low-productivity in rural areas. The extent to which the poor benefit from job creation depends on whether they have the skills firms need. The poor are less educated and tend to be employed in small informal firms.

Urban poverty: The lack of employment leads to poverty. The 1998/99 crisis sent employment and real labour income plummeting, urban poverty rose. Between 1990-2001, approximately 30-40% of Ecuadorians migrated both within and outside the country. Movements contributed to increase in poverty in areas with net in-migration.

Rural poverty: 40% of Ecuador’s population lives in rural areas (60% of whom are poor). Rural poor tend to work in agriculture. For these rural poor, access to credit and agricultural education/technical assistance have the largest impact on small farm productivity.

This project will alleviate poverty particularly within the rural sierra area 10 kilometre radius from Tumbaco by (1) developing skills in rural women that will enable them to benefit from growing tourism activity of the project area through the provision of hospitality services and food products, thereby enabling them to earn an income and (2) removing fear about the legal requirements of the formal work sector through activities that inform women of the benefits of being active in the formal work sector and make possible the sharing of positive experiences among rural women.

Performance indicators	1 Year Target	/ 1 Year Result
Short Courses delivered	11	12
Women trained in at least 2 skills	120	116 of 148
Women trained in micro enterprise operations	45	39 of 41
Supervision meetings held	54	42
Micro enterprises set up	9	9
Rural women's forum held	1	1
Women attending the rural forum	75	89

Updated October 2008