Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
10MBABANE74
2010-02-24 15:29:00
UNCLASSIFIED
Embassy Mbabane
Cable title:  

S/GWI PROJECT PROPOSALS - SWAZILAND

Tags:  KWMN PREL KPAO PHUM AID CDC COM TRSY WZ 
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VZCZCXYZ0000
RR RUEHWEB

DE RUEHMB #0074/01 0551529
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 241529Z FEB 10
FM AMEMBASSY MBABANE
TO SECSTATE WASHDC 3938
UNCLAS MBABANE 000074 

SIPDIS

DEPT FOR S/GWI; AF/S (MHARRIS)

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: KWMN PREL KPAO PHUM AID CDC COM TRSY WZ
SUBJECT: S/GWI PROJECT PROPOSALS - SWAZILAND

REF: 09 STATE 132094

UNCLAS MBABANE 000074

SIPDIS

DEPT FOR S/GWI; AF/S (MHARRIS)

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: KWMN PREL KPAO PHUM AID CDC COM TRSY WZ
SUBJECT: S/GWI PROJECT PROPOSALS - SWAZILAND

REF: 09 STATE 132094


1. In response to reftel, U.S. Embassy Mbabane appreciates the
opportunity to submit four project proposals that seek to address
the many challenges facing Swazi women. The proposals are presented
by priority order. Post received over twenty proposals, and each
one would greatly benefit the political, economic or social
advancement of women. Post hopes that the four proposals submitted
will be considered favorably, and that if any additional funds
become available, Swaziland will be considered. If lesser funds are
available for any of the projects, we would appreciate the
opportunity to help the organization down-scale the project to meet
the budget. Thank you for an extension on this submission, and we
will be happy to address any questions you may have.


2. The post's coordinator for the Ambassador's Self-Help Grants,
Military, and Federal Assistance will have project and financial
oversight responsibility for all approved projects. Contact
information: Vicky Mboka-Boyer, phone +(268) 404-6441 ext. 2016, or
IVG +732-2016. All nominated projects support the Mission's
Strategic Plan. A multi-office team evaluated the proposals to
ensure that there was no overlap with other possible funding
sources, such as PEPFAR or DRL, or regionally administered programs.
All three projects would provide needed resources to complement
Mission efforts to achieve the goals it shares with S/GWI.


3. Project #1 TechnoServe: Capacitating and providing working
capital to the Golden Women knitting business, to create 200 new
jobs for Swazi women.


A. PROBLEM STATEMENT

Economic and business leadership opportunities for women in
Swaziland are limited and lag significantly behind those available
to men. In Swaziland, only 23.5 percent of women hold formal
employment positions compared to 39.6 percent for men. It is a
testament to the leadership skills of women that they hold 30.2
percent of management and leadership positions in the private
sector, but the number is declining (from 34.4 percent in 2000).
Without a source of income, women often are not able to meet their

basic living needs, provide for their families, educate their
children, or make independent financial decisions. Moreover,
although handcrafts are a leading industry in Swaziland, none of the
country's major handcrafts businesses (e.g., Gone Rural, Ngwenya
Glass, Rosecraft, Swazi Candles, etc.) are owned by a black woman.

The goal of the Golden Women knitting project is to address these
problem areas. It would assist a target group of poor women who
have received some knitting and crochet training but have lost their
jobs due to the relocation of the employer. TechnoServe's goal is
to provide the technical assistance, training, and working capital
needed to expand the Golden Women knitting project as a means to
making it a self-sustaining, Swazi-managed small industry.


B. SUMMARY OF PROPOSED PROGRAM

Golden Women is a woman-owned income generation business that has
the potential to create 200+ fair-wage knitting and crochet jobs for
Swazi women by the end of 2011. Twenty of these jobs would be
leadership and management positions.

The new jobs would empower women, who live primarily in rural areas,
because it would provide them with income while enabling them to
work from home, on their own schedules, and for the amount of hours
they choose. Women in leadership positions would act as "site
leaders," earning a higher wage, leading and training a group of
twenty women each, and managing the group's cotton supply and
money.

TechnoServe believes these goals are feasible and proposes to
provide the assistance Golden Women needs to achieve them. Proposed
activities include: employing a TechnoServe resource to act as the
Golden Women business manager, develop business processes, and
coordinate growth of the business; identifying and training a
permanent business manager; coordinating training for knitters and
site leaders; developing and implementing a sales and marketing
strategy to grow the business's customer base; and passing on seed
working capital to pay for initial increases in cotton costs.

Golden Women intends to be a self-sustaining business by the end of

2011. Its ambition is to invest its profits and use its business
skills to continue to grow after that point. Indeed, a similar
business operated in Zimbabwe for 15 years and employed about 5,000
women at its peak. Golden Women's long-term aspiration is to
operate on that scale.


C. PROJECT DESCRIPTION

Goal: The vision for Golden Women is to increase economic and
leadership opportunities available to Swazi women, primarily rural
women. Golden Women intends to create 200+ jobs in addition to the
existing 100. Twenty of these jobs would be management and
leadership positions, all held by women. Golden Woman also aspires
to be the first 100 percent black woman-owned business to become a
leader in Swaziland's handcraft industry. Once Golden Women has
achieved this scale, TechnoServe projects that it will be able to
operate sustainably without outside assistance. In the future, the
business plans to reinvest its profits to enable further growth.

Golden Women is a very promising initiative because it has many keys
to success in place:

A market exists to buy Golden Women's products: Golden Spiderweb,
the business's core customer, is committed to working with Golden
Women, and would like to increase order sizes. In addition, Baobab
Batik regularly sources stuffed dolls, and Golden Women can leverage
its relationships to sell more products locally. Other potential
buyers have contacted Golden Women because they are interested in
purchasing handknit products (e.g., A Jewish group in the U.S. has
requested sample hand-knit Yamakas; a UK-based fashion designer
requested that Golden Women produce hand-knit mohair jumpers).

Golden Women will be able to scale up quickly because it already has
a partially trained workforce of an estimated 450 women who knot
and/or crochet, and are desperate for work.


D. ACTIVITIES

TechnoServe proposes to engage in the below activities, which are
critical to enable Golden Women to achieve its goals. TechnoServe
would dedicate a full-time resource to perform these activities:

Activity #1: Develop business processes, manage the business (1st 6
months),and train a business manager (after 6 months). These
include
developing streamlined business processes and/or systems for:
customer communications and sales; data, analysis, and reporting;
financial management (including profitability, costings, pricing,
accounting, and payroll); human resources; inventory management;
order management (e.g., production, quality control, distribution);
purchasing; refinement of the business strategy; identifying in
consultation with Golden Women a business manager to be trained to
manage the business in accordance with the newly designed business
processes. The business should operate self-sufficiently with this
resource one year from the start of the project.

Activity #2: Implement a sales and marketing strategy in order to
sell to new customers by facilitating the development of a marketing
strategy including a trading name, desired brand image, typical
customer, etc. Marketing materials such as business card, label,
logo, catalogue, web site will be designed and produced. A sales
strategy will also be put in place. TechnoServ and Golden Women
Director will
attend SARCDA trade shows in August 2010 and March 2011.

Activity #3: Train knitters and group leaders: TechnoServe will
assist Golden Women in developing these trainings. Training topics:
knitting skills; the importance of quality control; basics of the
business Site leaders - how to train and manage others; financial
management; management of materials (e.g., cotton); how to ensure
high quality results; how to communicate effectively with the
director and the business manager; basics of the business.

Activity #4: Purchase needed cotton: While the business can
currently fund enough cotton for 150-250 units, it does not have
enough cash to purchase the cotton it would need to fill
larger-scale orders. Together with currently available funds,
Technoserve proposes E50,000 (6,666 USD) to purchase additional
cotton. This would fund cotton for 1.5 orders at the 450 unit/300
woman scale. Golden Women needs funding for 1.5 orders because
customers may not pay until 45 days after an initial order is
filled. After this initial purchase, the business will be able to
use sales revenues to purchase additional cotton and will no longer
rely on funding.


E. DESIRED OUTCOMES

Golden Women has the potential to make a significant and measurable
impact on Swaziland's rural women. The project aims to achieve the
following three core goals by the end of 2011:

Create 200+ new fair wage jobs for Swazi women (at or above the
minimum Swaziland handcrafts wage of E 3.23 per hour).

Create 20 leadership jobs (site leader, business manager, or
production manager) for Swazi women.

Operate as a self-sustainable business without any need for further
funding. Reinvest profits to grow the business.

These new jobs will help women achieve positions of economic
stability and allow them to take on an important new role as a
breadwinner. Women typically use the money they earn to buy basic
household items such as salt and oil, to cover childrens' school
fees, or even as extra spending cash to purchase items they may not
have previously owned.


F. PERFORMANCE MEASURES

TechnoServe proposes to track performance using the following
metrics:
- Number of women employed on a monthly basis
- Average hourly wage per woman employed
- Number of women in leadership positions
- Total sales (approx monthly sales of E 75,000 needed to employ 300
women; or less if sales are regional, because the 75,000 includes
substantial shipping costs)
- Profit (e.g., business must earn profit to be self-sustaining)
- Number of wholesale customers
- Existence of a capacitated business manager by June 2011


G. DETAILED BUDGET

TechnoServe strongly believes that it can help Golden Women achieve
its growth goals. However, TechnoServe cannot currently dedicate the
time and resources needed to implement this aggressive growth
strategy because the above activities are beyond the scope of the
funding TechnoServe receives from any source. With the funding
proposed here, TechnoServe will be able to dedicate a resource
person for one year to assist Golden Women by playing a direct,
hands-on role in assisting the knitters through the entire
production process (from sourcing of materials to training of
knitters, to controlling quality, to liaising with the market, etc).
In addition, TechnoServe proposes pass-through funding to Golden
Women for specific marketing and materials expenses. The detailed
project budget is as follows:

Line Item Rate Unit Total
Salaries E 236,250
- Business advisor 236,250 /year
Fringe Benefits E 101,753
- 43.07 percent
Allowances E 104,500
- Housing
- Airfare subsidy (home leave)
Office Expenses E 31,440
- Rent, systems, and facil. 2,620 /mo
International Travel E 27,000
- Transport(regional) 3,000 /trip
- Accommodation / per diems 750 /day
Local Travel E 12,240
- Mileage @ E2.3/km 170 /trip
Equipment (Cost