Discovering A Route to Formalize Women-Owned Businesses in Jordan
- Partner: Arab Women’s Enterprise Fund (AWEF), DAI, UK Department for International Development (DFID)
- Publication Type: Blog Post
- Date: March 10, 2020
- Team: Reham Gharbiyeh, Julia Hakspiel
- Recommended Citation:
This blog builds on MarketShare Associates’ work in Jordan supporting the Arab Women’s Enterprise Fund (AWEF) to stimulate increased women’s economic empowerment through a market systems approach. This authors share key results from AWEF’s work with local municipalities to facilitate vocational licensing for home-based entrepreneurs.
AWEF’s research on market linkages between the end market and female-operated informal home-based businesses found that the majority of companies only worked with registered and certified businesses that can guarantee quality and reliability. Focus group discussions conducted with informal, home-based, female-led businesses disclosed that women remained hesitant to formalize due to costs involved, the complexity of the process, and concerns around taxation and losing government aid.
To date, AWEF’s approach has led to adoption of the home-based licensing process across 20 municipalities within Jordan, with over 300 women obtaining vocational licenses. As part of the licensing process women are trained to adjust production to meet market and supplier requirements, enabling many of them to grow and formalize their businesses. Several women who were licensed have been connected to large, national buyers.
