Women as investors, professionals and workers in Afghanistan

Spinning wool yarn for carpet weaving

Women's economic empowerment is a frequently discussed topic in development circles. But, considering how much attention it receives, and how often it is emphasised in project documents, it is extraordinarily difficult to assess whether all this time and effort has achieved the intended results.

More girls are going to school than before - but what about the quality of the education they receive? And are families as willing to invest their hard earned money in a daughter's schooling as they are in a son's?

Women do work - in the professions and in skilled jobs - but such opportunities are largely restricted to urban centres and even then they are extremely limited, and there are strong cultural counter-currents. And are there any more women working today than when there were women bus-drivers in Kabul during the Soviet occupation? (I honestly don't know the answer to that question - maybe someone could shed some light?)

There are female investors and entrepreneurs, but still very few, and sadly (as with their male counterparts) some of those who have set up businesses owe more to their capacity to access donor subsidy than they do to their entrepreneurial skills.

Walking home from school - to a different future?

The painful reality is that despite all of the well-intentioned efforts and the "mainstreaming" of gender issues, very little change has been achieved in women's economic status in Afghanistan over the past decade. Or at least, that is how it looks on the ground. Some might say that things have even started to go backwards...

However, in this apparently bleak landscape, there are glimmers of hope that a woman can enjoy something like the same economic opportunities as a man. One of the professional satisfactions of working on the Afghanistan Business Innovation Fund has been to see the way that "our" investors have engaged women in their businesses. Not because we have subsidised them to do so, or because we have imposed quotas, but because it makes business sense for them to do so.

Women investors
We tried so hard to reach and attract female applicants to the competition for ABIF grants. We didn't expect that many, because statistically, there aren't many businesswomen in Afghanistan, but there were hardly any at all. Most of those who did apply came more from an NGO-type perspective, looking for handouts, rather than a business background with the makings of a commercially viable plan.

Out of 500 applications, that led to 23 grant awards, only one of the successful applicants was a woman. We made no concessions during the selection process. This application was submitted to scrutiny that was as rigorous as all of the others, and the grant was won in fair competition. And now, the investment project is largely complete and the business (delivery of primary healthcare in rural communities) has made a good start and looks to have a very promising future.

For sure, one of the lessons learned from the ABIF experience, is that we need to do even more to open the competition to female applicants. For example, we should probably look again at our selection criteria, that disadvantaged start up businesses. This bias probably had the unwitting effect of excluding women entrepreneurs.

Women in the professions

Preparing samples for examination

Another of our projects, also in the healthcare services sector, has created new opportunities for female doctors and medical students. A small private histopathology laboratory in Mazar, focuses on testing samples for breast cancer.

The service allows patients to access quick and cheap diagnosis of suspected tumours, avoiding expensive foreign travel. In turn this means earlier diagnosis and much improved treatment options.

Because of this focus on the diagnosis of breast cancer, it makes sense for Milli Medical to employ a female doctor to examine patients. But more is being done, and the centre is currently providing on-the-job training to two female medical students, and Dr Rokai - the director - is planning to set up a dedicated pathology training centre for male and female students from the local medical university.

Jobs for women
Pretty much all of the ABIF grantees have created some jobs for women. But there are clear gender demarcation lines - some jobs are for men and others are for women - and there is only one occasion that I can remember having seen men and women working alongside one another doing the same task. And women's jobs tend to be in unskilled or low-skilled roles.

One example of significant skilled job creation for women is a company called Sahib Zarman, based in Kabul. With ABIF support, this company has started to manufacture cotton and wool yarn for the carpet weaving industry, and is now looking to diversify, developing the skills necessary to spin cashmere yarn. They already employ 300 women, most of whom work from home, to hand-spin wool yarn. This is a pilot phase, and based on the commercial success to date, the plan is to scale up significantly in the coming months.

For young women, with homes and children to look after, working from home is the preferred option. Some older women, and those women whose landlords object to them working, travel to the small facility set up by Sahib Zarman. But whether working from home or not, the opportunity to earn a few dollars each day is very welcome for families that are often living in fairly desperate conditions.

Sorting cashmere in Herat

Meanwhile, in Herat, a cashmere sorting centre (one of four that supplies another ABIF grantee, CFI) employs 50 women to separate the different colours of raw cashmere before it is sent for processing.

These women work full time, in fairly basic conditions, but according to those we interviewed (admittedly not a scientific sample) they can earn considerably more money than their husbands or sons.

And remember, neither of these examples is a subsidised job creation scheme, we did not insist on jobs for women, or in any way interfere with the commercial operations of the company. These are real, sustainable jobs, providing real incomes.

What next?

Relying on handouts - survival strategy, but
lacking dignity

It is not the purpose of private business to achieve social change. For small enterprises already struggling against the odds, survival depends on making a profit, and so decisions tend to be primarily driven by cold, commercial logic.

But this does not mean that private business cannot be an agent of social change. So long as the gender agenda takes account of the environment and goes with the commercial flow.

The examples above demonstrate that women can participate in the economy - outside of the home - and there are small openings that can be widened.

But my view is that this will best be achieved if the development community really engages with the private sector, understanding the incremental nature of change in a conservative society, and without imposing values (rather than value) driven conditionalities to their offered assistance.