Sri Lanka’s economy is dominated by micro and small businesses. The country which witnessed a 30 year war and a tsunami did not have an enabling environment for long term business planning. However, after the end of the war, each successive government has highlighted the importance of the emergence of small and medium scale industries that can compete well in the global market.
Despite the many incentives introduced by the government to promote SME sector, the sector is still not delivering to its promise and visibility of women in this sector is quite insignificant.
SEFEC supports economic inclusion and financial independence for women by way of viable business solutions. Business solutions offered by SEFEC include tools and training and coaching programmes to support financial service providers adapt their products and services better to meet the needs of women entrepreneurs, and advise for reengineering institutional culture and practices to support strengthening the economic and social status of women entrepreneurs.
One main problem faced by women is the heavy debt burden, towards commercial micro finance entities who have manipulated the financial illiteracy and business vulnerability of women entrepreneurs. SEFEC supports SANASA cooperatives to develop competitive products and services , to address this situation and to create a more enabling financial services environment.
These tools are being developed in real life situations with local SANASA societies who are encouraged to offer adapted services to meet the needs of female entrepreneurs. Encouraging dialogue between men and women on household financials, supporting women to become more aware on financial processes, improving knowledge of women on markets and financial products and services, enable women to gain a competitive advantage in value chains. SEFEC along with Uththamavi company, has assisted SANASA system to establish a gender equality policy, which will work as a benchmark within Sanasa entities in ensuring that the services are gender-equality driven.
A Vision for Sustainability
EFFEC project is an innovative pilot initiative with the core goal of empowering local growth and women entrepreneurship in Sri Lanka. To ensure that the pilot initiatives undertaken, tools tested, learnings gathered are feeding into a long term social transformation, the project work is hoped to get rooted at SANASA Entrepreneurship Financial Expertise Centre (SEFEC). EFEC is the vehicle that drives the policy for SEFEC to take a sustainable and leading role in ensuring economic inclusion and financial independence of entrepreneurs in Sri Lanka. Uththamavi, the apex company of SANASA network for gender mainstreaming, plays a significant role, by guiding SEFEC to be more female friendly, when integrating SEFEC tools and methodologies to promote entrepreneurships.