In this post, we present how Rea collaborated with UNDP and the Ministry of Industry and Technology of Türkiye, to provide small grants and business development consultancy services to 40 women cooperatives that were struggling because of COVID-19 pandemic on top of other challenges.
Women cooperatives play a crucial role in promoting gender equality and empowering women economically. These cooperatives provide women with opportunities to earn an income, acquire new skills, and gain financial independence. They also provide a platform for women to work together and support each other, breaking down barriers and promoting a sense of community.
In many parts of the world, women face significant barriers to economic participation, including unequal pay, limited access to credit, and lack of property rights. Women cooperatives help to address these challenges by providing women with access to resources, training, and support that they might not otherwise have access to. For example, women cooperatives may offer loans or other financial services to members, helping them to start or grow businesses. They may also provide training on financial literacy and business management, helping women to better understand and navigate the financial system.
Despite these benefits, women cooperatives face a number of challenges and obstacles. These may include limited access to markets, lack of technical and business skills, and limited access to finance. In addition, women cooperatives may struggle to gain recognition and legitimacy, and may be subject to discrimination and gender-based violence. To address these challenges, it is important to provide women cooperatives with adequate support and resources, including access to markets, training, and financing.
In response to the challenges outlined above, the project that Rea involved in was developed in order to address the risk of growing social tensions and identified socio-economic distress caused by the pandemic. It addresses the perceptions of socio-cultural differences, increasing social distance between communities, language barriers, decreasing social acceptance, competition for jobs, security concerns, misperceptions and misinformation about available services as well as the pressure on services and assistance as the factors affecting social cohesion in Türkiye.
In light of the above context, the Project aimed to increase self-reliance of refugees and host community members with a specific focus on women through business development services and grants to alleviate the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on existing cooperatives and entrepreneurs to realize their business ideas. The project is implemented in partnership with the Directorate General for Development Agencies under the Ministry of Industry and Technology. UNDP has selected Rea to conduct a series of interventions to support 40 women cooperatives in Turkey in order to sustain and improve their business at the height of the pandemic.
A total of 40 selected cooperatives were visited in 28 provinces which are affiliated with 10 Development Agencies .During most of the visits, our experts were accompanied by related DA personnel and personnel from UNDP Turkey. The field study has been implemented with a mixed methodology. Surveys and Focus Group Discussions (FGD) have been conducted with each cooperative partners, to understand and assess the needs of cooperatives. Each visit lasted half day on average.
The field study aimed to understand their current status and the needs of the cooperatives on Business Development Services (BDSs) such as Management, organization, Human Resources,Marketing, Sales, Production and etc. Also, based on the observation and future perspective of the members, needs for equipment, services or other needs have been noted for provision of small grants support of the Project.
Our work has identified the following main challenges for our target group:
- The majority of cooperatives were established within the past couple of years and majority of the partners lack business and managerial experience needed to effectively run a economic establishment, let alone a cooperative.
- All of the visited cooperatives are trying hard to survive and develop with their own means. However, each one has the potential to make a big difference with very small touches.
- All cooperatives have weaknesses in similar areas: management and organization,marketing, sales, finance, cost, digitalization and technology monitoring, etc.
- Cooperatives supported by public institutions (municipalities, district governorships, etc.)are more active and have higher chance to sustain its activities in the future.
- COVID pandemic and overall economic recession that followed significantly impacted the target group, causing reduction in production, sales revenue and partner motivation in almost all of the cooperatives.
Rea has provided a total of 800 hours of business development and consultancy services to 40 women cooperatives, in various topics determined via the needs analysis carried out before. The consultancy services have been delivered within a hybrid model which means delivering at least 30% of the consultancy services face-to-face to every cooperative, the rest of the consultancy sessions were conducted online.
After the consultancy services, Rea also implemented a small grants program for the women cooperatives to will alleviate some of the challenges experienced by women’s cooperatives due to the pandemic. These grants are to be used help the cooperatives to achieve progress in their commercial activities. The team has prepared a Grants report which provides justifications for selection of areas of support for each cooperative. During the delivery of consultancy services, the consultants have evaluated the requested grants based on the observed weaknesses and strengths of cooperatives.Necessary suggestions were done in the determination of areas for small grants and attention was paid to the areas that would make the most positive difference in the current situation of the cooperative, together with the contribution of the applied consultancy services.
We have also developed and freely distributed a catalog that showcases their products and services of the women cooperatives in the target groups.
You can download the catalog from this link: https://www.undp.org/tr/turkiye/publications/kadin-kooperatifleri-ve-kadin-girisimciler-urun-katalogu
Below is a quick summary of the results achieved by Rea and other stakeholders:
- 40 women cooperatives in 10 different development zones of Türkiye were visited for needs assessment study. Following the needs assessment, 40 beneficiaries received one-on-one consultancy services on sales & marketing, production/manufacturing/quality, management and finance and grant support to expand their businesses.
- 9 beneficiaries were matched with companies, 7 beneficiaries were integrated into the e-commerce platforms. The number of unique beneficiaries either matched with companies and/or e-commerce platforms is 13.
- The roadmap report has been finalized in Turkish that include conceptual and action framework for identifying local products to be commercialized.
- The online platform, anadoludakiler.org has been developed to facilitate the commercialization of the traditional/local products by taking stock of these products and making referrals to the producers in 81 provinces of Türkiye.
- 108 women’s cooperatives and women entrepreneurs from refugee and host community participated face to face training of the bootcamps in Kayseri, Izmir and Hatay for 4 days and online for 6 days, and 104 participants have successfully completed the Program.
- 18 women’s cooperatives and 22 women entrepreneurs from refugee and host community were selected to be benefitted from business development consultancy and grant support to start and grow their businesses. 40 women-led entities were supported through business development services and micro-grants.
- 7 beneficiaries were matched with companies, 8 beneficiaries were integrated into the e-commerce platforms. The number of unique beneficiaries either matched with companies and/or e-commerce platforms is 2.
