Ensuring Economic Security among returnee Women Migrant Workers (WMWs) and their family members

Guideline on Enterprise Promotion and Development

Submitted to:

UN Women for Nepal Institute of Development Studies (NIDS)

Kathmandu

Prepared by:

Sushil Kumar Sharma

Bishwa Raj Karki

Industrial Enterprise Development Institute

P.O.Box: 3676, Tripureswor, Kathmandu

February, 2011


Preface

Proper mobilization and effective utilization of a country's available human resources are essential for broad based national economic development from which women and men of all social groups enjoy benefits equally from the development effort. Women are seen as actively integrated into economic life and their labor and economic output as essential for supporting their families. However, most Nepalese women, both the rural and urban, have often faced increasing impoverishment and difficulty in meeting their basic needs. The patriarchal structure of Nepalese society has always considered women as subordinate to men and their contribution is only recognized as supporter to family and left behind while counting households and economic activities. Women cover more than half of population in Nepal and their exclusion in both private and public arena indicate a 50% drag down in the development and it is an extreme loss of human potential for the national holistic development agenda and bottleneck to achieve MDG. Imparting education and skill for gainful employment to the girls and women, especially in the lower strata of economic group and families is crucial.

Recent development, after 10 years of armed insurgency in the nation, has forced many men to leave their homes both to ensure their physical and economic security. This has in many instances lead to women taking the lead role to support for the survival of the family which has pressurized women to enter into the job market and foreface to economic activities both in the country and outside the national boundaries. But, low literacy level, lack of ownership of assets, lack of skills and trainings, their confinement within household to fulfill responsibilities of caring and nurturing the children and elderly, most women cannot maximize the gains from employment opportunities. Most women are engaged in lower rung of economic activities mostly concentrated in informal sector making them exposed to abuse and exploitation. Despite the ongoing peace process opportunities in the labor market have not seen a significant improvement. The number of Nepali men and women entering jobs in the foreign market is in the rise with estimated thousand Nepali men and women leaving the country per day. Many are reaching their employment destination without any skill and proper information as required by the job resulting to exploitation and violence in many cases. Despite these constrains, remittance sent in by these workers has been the backbone supporting the conflict- ridden economy. Remittance is contributing to 23% of the GDP- a formidable sector with substantive contribution. However, there is lack of vision and policies to maximize these gains of international labor migration linking it to the development of Nepal. The potential of remittance both financial and skills to secure socio economic development of Nepal remains severely underutilized and untapped.

In such situation it is seen essential to design an integrated package to link remittance to create sustainable alternative livelihood in Nepal. Proper reintegration package needs to be introduced to provide potential migrants with alternatives to use the remittance in productive sectors on their return hence, sustaining and multiplying gains of their opportunities of international labor migration. Reaching out to potential migrants with required skills and information including the analysis of cost and benefit within foreign employment provides them with informed choices and help prevent them from violence and exploitation. Ironically, Nepal is feeling the deficit of workers in the very sectors where Nepali workers are engaged in large number in various international labor destinations. There is a big challenge to bridge this gap between supply and demand and generate opportunities in Nepal especially targeting for those that are forced to re-migrate with the aim to retain them in the country, while providing opportunities of reintegration to those who return from abroad as migrant workers seeking opportunities to invest their remittances.

Forced and unplanned migration for women is more costly due to the nature of their work as domestic workers and care givers which are not always regulated by the national laws of the countries of employment. Issues of decent work and social security remains elusive in the informal economy and state intervention and monitoring to ensure safety and security can be limited. Moreover, the long time separation of a mother from household creates a vacuum especially creating care deficit which has also seen the growth in delinquencies among their children. The absence of household members have added work and care burden especially among the female members that remains in Nepal especially taken on by elderly daughters. The changes in societal fabrics can have devastating impact if it is not addressed timely. On this ground, it is critical to educate/ train women on their work requirements and their rights as migrants to ensure safe migration remains a challenging job. Likewise, creating alternatives in Nepal and helping women to make informed choices in seeking opportunities either in Nepal or abroad remains a daunting task ahead.

Considering the need to address these concerns, a pilot initiative was tested in 3 districts of Nepal, namely Kathmandu, Kaski and Sunsari, by providing entrepreneurship development opportunities to returnee WMWs and the members of families of migrants by utilizing remittance with the objective to create alternative livelihood opportunities in Nepal. It has been able to generate positive response as the intervention has provided opportunities for the participants to earn an equivalent income staying in Nepal. More significantly women are grateful as they could stay close to their family and at the same time be economically secured. Hence 94% out of approximately 750 returnee WMWs and migrant families have shared that if given such opportunity they will not want to go for foreign employment. As a part of this initiative, there is a provision for the replication, extension and expansion of the package.

Therefore, this enterprise Development guideline has been developed from the perspective and need of target group (women migrant workers and migrant family members). The guideline will be instrumental in identifying the target group (which is a challenge as there is limited data on the returnee and there are not settled in one cluster), identification of the entrepreneurial traits/qualities among them and developing such qualities and skill through training to establish and run WMWs owned enterprises. Beside this, the guidelines will also provide input on process and method; on how an enterprise will be started and established by such target group like WMWs. It also includes the component on leadership and organizational development of the target group to mobilise them as agent of change. The development practitioner (professionals or development agents) will be benefited from this guideline in carrying out programs on economic enhancement of such migrant women workers and family of migrant workers, who are dependent on remittance.

Last but not the least, this guide line is the product of relevant, informative documents/ reports, professional input, support of the professionals/staffs in the UN Women, NIDS, POURAKHI and two decades long experience of Industrial Enterprise Development Institute (IEDI) in the field of entrepreneurship promotion and development in Nepal.


Contents

Part-I: Introduction 6

1.1 Introduction 6

1.2 What are the Objectives of Developing this Guideline? 7

1.3 What Methodologies have been applied to develop this Guideline? 7

1.4 For whom has this Guide line been developed? 8

1.5 Who is the Target Group? 8

1.6 What Age Group is accommodated? 8

1.7 On what type of employment has the program focused? 9

1.8 Organization of the Guide line 9

1.9 Team Composition 9

Part II: Entrepreneurship Development Training 10

2.1 Objective 10

2.2 Identification of the potential location, target group through exisitng baselines, reports and consultations 10

2.3 Training Need Assessment of the WMWs /Participants .

2.4 Awareness Workshop .

2.5 Final Selection of the Training Participants

2.7 Train the Trainers / EDF/ Social Mobilisers .

2.8 Enterprise Development Training .

2.9 Group Formation 15

Part III: Follow up Counselling 17

3.1 Follow up 17

3.1.1 Introduction 17

3.1.2 Purpose of follow up 17

3.1.3 Method of follow up 18

3.1.4 Time plan for follow up event 20

3.1.5 Frequency of Follow up Visit 21

3.1.6 Areas of Support Services during Follow up 21

3.1.7 Start-up Stage 23

3.1.8 Roaster of Experts 24

3.2 Counselling Service 24

3.2.1 Introduction 24

3.2.2 Counselling Style 24

3.2.3 Steps of Counselling .

3.2.4 Documentation/Filing 28

3.2.5 Enterprises sick or die 28

3.2.6 Program for Growth Oriented Enterprises 29

3.2.7Networking with Organization 30

3.2.8Value Chain Development 31

3.2.9 Monitoring and Evaluation 32

3.2.10 Exit strategies 33


Part-I: Introduction

1.1 Introduction

The Nepalese women, both the rural and urban, have often faced increasing impoverishment and difficulty in meeting their basic needs. Women in this view are rightfully seen as actively integrated into economic life and their labor and economic output as essential for supporting their families. The patriarchal structure of Nepalese society has always considered women as subordinate to men and supporter to family and left behind while counting households; as a result poor access to the resources its control and benefits.

Economic Security of Women Migrant Workers (WMWs) project implemented by UNIFEM, a part of UN WOMEN Nepal in partnership with Nepal Institute of Development Studies (NIDS) and Pourakhi, the organization of returnee WMWs, aiming as piloting a community level initiative to encourage investment of remittances in sustainable community-based enterprises in order to enhance the economic security of WMWs and their families. The overall objective of the project is to identify target groups for enhancing their technical, managerial, marketing and entrepreneurial capacity and improve their access to technical, financial and market services for the productive enterprise development. To achieve the stated objectives, the project aims to promote gender-responsive policies, strategy and program on foreign employment, remittances and reintegration.

As the impact of the armed insurgency and the ongoing political instability, opportunities in the domestic market have been severely curtailed, and Nepali men and women have been forced to take on jobs in the foreign market. Hence, many are reaching their employment destination without any skill and proper information as required by the job resulting to exploitation and violence in many cases. On the other hand the remittance has been the backbone of sustaining the conflict ridden economy when most of the industries were forced to a halt. Remittance is contributing to 23% of the GDP a formidable sector with substantive contribution.

It is seen essential to design an integrated package to link remittance to create sustainable alternative to livelihood in Nepal. Proper reintegration package need to be introduced to provide potential migrants with alternatives to use the remittance in productive sectors on their return hence sustaining and multiplying gains of their opportunities of international labor migration. Forced and unplanned migration for women is more costly due to the nature of their work as domestic workers and care givers which are not always regulated by the national laws of the countries of employment. Similarly the long term migration of women away from the family has seen to be comparatively expensive as there is a vacuum on rearing and caring of the children that are left behind. This is resulting in engagement of the children of migrants in the unsocial behavior which could be devastating in a country that is have high population of migrants especially WMWs. To mitigate the above mentioned situation, NIDS/ POURAKHI with the support of UN WOMEN developed do-able guideline on Enterprise Promotion and Development Program to provide customized support services to WMWs and the migrant families so as to enable them to have productive investment of remittance earned as migrant workers, to the status of self-employment and owner of the business venture. Beside this, the guidelines will also provide input on process and method; on how an enterprise will be started and established by such target group like WMWs, which is designed and developed based on field tested finding and recommendations with the similar target groups.

1.2 What are the Objectives of Developing this Guideline?

The main objective of developing this guidelines on Enterprise Promotion and Development Program for WMWs is to guide the program designer, organizer, implementer, the trainers/facilitators and social mobilisers to the whole process of enterprise development program for: (i)Returnee Women Migrant Workers (WMWs) (ii) Migrant Workers' immediate family members (those members of the family who have full access to mobilize and control over the remittance or any kind of earning/resources made /owned and (iii) Excluded Women (for example: survived from the trafficking violence affected women(VAW), differently able women, single women etc) who are in need of economic security: This third category are taken as a potential group to migrate in search of work. This guideline is prepared as generic version which needs to be customized for the specific target group because the issues of MWWs (the returnee from Japan Korea or Israel and returnee from Gulf countries is different and at the same time the issue of violence affected women, differently-able (disable) and single women is quite different from one another which needs to be addressed differently and properly (skilled trainers and mobilisers’) from the very beginning of base line survey.

1.3 What Methodologies have been applied to develop this Guideline?

Professionals of Industrial Enterprise Development Institute (IEDI), Nepal reviewed relevant documents, process of pilot program implementation and discussed with concerned staff UN Women, NIDS/ Paurakhi. Based on which, professionals of IEDI have prepared this guidelines on Enterprise Promotion and Development Program for WMWs and members of migrant families including some excluded women’s group that has been identified through the learning of the project, as highly potential group for foreign labor migration with high vulnerability.

1.4 For whom has this Guide line been developed?

The goal of the project on Economic Security of WMWs is to contribute to reduce poverty in Nepal by enhancing the economic security of WMWs and their families through the productive investment of remittances. UN Women Nepal is executing and implementing the project through two prominent organizations, namely Nepal Institute of Development Studies (NIDS) and Paurakhi, under the overall guidance and support of a Steering Committee at national level chaired by the Secretary of the Ministry of Labor and Transport Management (MOLTM) at the national level and District Advisory Committee for Enterprise Development (DACED) at the sub national level. This guide line has been developed for/ to identify steps on supporting returnee women migrant workers, their families to initiate enterprise development while including other excluded women’s group that has been identified through the learning of the project, as highly potential group for foreign labor migration with high vulnerability.