Business and Social Support for Female Entrepreneurs in Timor-Leste

The Women and Girls Empowered (WAGE) Business and Social Support for Female Entrepreneurs in Timor-Leste initiative was implemented by Grameen Foundation and the American Bar Association Rule of Law Initiative (ABA ROLI) from 2020-2023.

The WAGE program's third strategic initiative, Business and Social Support for Female Entrepreneurs in Timor-Leste (BEST), was a multi-disciplinary program aimed at addressing the intertwined social, economic, and regulatory challenges faced by women microentrepreneurs in starting, maintaining, and expanding businesses. The program worked to build the capacity of local microfinance institutions (MFIs) and women’s empowerment-focused civil society organizations (WE CSOs) through technical assistance and small grants to facilitate the development, piloting, and evaluation of formal linkages that ultimately enable vulnerable women to succeed as entrepreneurs as well as provide women entrepreneurs with increased access to financial, entrepreneurial, and social support.

WAGE believed that if the capacity of leading CSOs, specifically MFIs and WE CSOs, in Timor-Leste is improved to enable women clients’ access to not only microfinance, but also business training and gender-based violence (GBV) support services, then more vulnerable women will become successful entrepreneurs. The BEST initiative aimed to provide women microentrepreneurs in Timor-Leste with access to a more holistic package of financial and social support, leading to enterprise growth and resilience.

The program's three goals included:

•  Strengthen the organizational and technical capacities of leading MFIs in Timor-Leste to provide gender-responsive services to female entrepreneurs;
• Strengthen the organizational and technical capacities of leading WE CSOs in Timor-Leste to provide quality business and livelihoods training sessions, gender-based violence (GBV) services, and linkages to microfinance services to benefit vulnerable women entrepreneurs; and 
• Formalize mutually beneficial linkages between MFIs and WE CSOs in Timor-Leste to expand women entrepreneurs’ access to financial, business, and GBV services.

WAGE research at program inception found Timorese women face a myriad of social-cultural, economic, and regulatory barriers in starting, maintaining, and expanding businesses. With these barriers in mind, WAGE designed interventions on WEE and GBV prevention and response. This included a small grant component and hands-on technical support to build local microfinance institutions’ (MFIs) and women’s empowerment CSOs’ capacity to help low-income women to succeed as entrepreneurs.

The program’s final evaluation found successes including greater awareness among male and female MFI staff about the interplay of gender, power, and conflict, and deeper understanding of the GBV risks women entrepreneurs face within these dynamics. There was also a noted improvement in approaches to business management. Despite these and other successes, WAGE did experience challenges with operationalizing our initial program design of supporting MFIs to lend in a more gender-sensitive and responsive way. MFIs in Timor-Leste prioritize a commercial approach rather than a social mission-focused approach and follow a hierarchical and slow-moving approach. Unfortunately, this perspective does not allow for the integration of complex issues, such as GBV prevention and response, into their service offerings for women clients. The evaluation report revealed a noteworthy discovery that suggests the potential for program replication and expansion with credit unions. Given the Timor-Leste context, credit unions are especially well-suited for partnering in this type of program. Credit unions are owned by their members, making them more accountable to the social and developmental needs of their communities. As a result, they may be more inclined to incorporate a gender lens into their work. The WAGE consortium observed this to be true, as a credit union was brought on to the project mid-implementation, partially in response to suggestions and feedback shared by local partners, and that collaboration was very successful.