About Wise

The Organization for Women in Self Employment(WISE) was established in September, 1997 and commenced full programme operation in January, 1998. WISE has been working with poor self-employed women in their efforts to achieve self-reliance, exercise their rights and improve the quality of their lives.

The major focus areas have been the economic and social empowerment of women and thus, the improvement of their position and condition in society. To achieve these aims, WISE developed a four-fold programme strategy to guide our direction during the past operational years. These strategies were Organizing and Capacity Building, Training and Development, Financing and Networking and Advocacy.

The direct target groups of WISE are poor self-employed girls and women in Addis Ababa who are mainly engaged in home based production and micro-scale trading activities and unemployed girls and women who wish to engage in micro-enterprise operation. Currently, WISE focuses its programme attention on 45 Woredas within Six sub-cities of Addis Ababa namely; Kirkos, Nefas-Silk-Lafto, Akaki-Kaliti, Addis Ketema and Gulele. The justification for focusing on these geographical areas of Addis Ababa is the deepened poverty among most residents and the related socio-economic situations that challenge women's status and position.

Since its commencement of operation in 1998, WISE has recorded remarkable achievements in the development of women micro-enterprise operators. Over 20,000 girls and women have been reached through 50 savings and credit cooperatives. Moreover, an umbrella institution of the cooperatives has been established to ensure the sustainability of services when WISE ceases direct support to the cooperatives. Through the provision of financial services, over 15,000 of these women and girls were able to initiate or expand their preferred lines of micro-enterprise operation. A total loan of close to Birr 57 million has been disbursed through the cooperatives and Union for the purpose of running businesses, making down payments for condominium housing units and covering children's school costs. Moreover, various trainings have been delivered with the aim of developing the knowledge, skills, and attitudes of the members in the areas of business management, leadership and management of cooperatives, health education, literacy and numeracy, family law, and gender.

The services of WISE in saving and credit initiatives have proven to be successful and a significant majority of the target women have become productive and self-reliant. The main reasons for choosing the savings and credit cooperatives (SACCOs) approach for the micro-finance services is that the approach provides for women's leadership development and it gives them ownership of the institutions. Members are able to easily access sizable loans for their businesses and they are directly involved in making decisions on pertinent issues such as the rate of interest on loans and savings, size of loans, repayment periods, etc. Surveys on women who have taken advantage of WISE services indicate that some of the target women have been able to transform their businesses from micro to small-scale, and that they have been able to create job opportunities for many people.

In short, the overall aim of the programme of bringing about holistic development in women and girls and contributing to the reduction of poverty has been satisfactorily attained with vivid results, witnessed by various studies and evaluations done on the performance of WISE. Thus, the extension of the programme with continual improvement and advancement through strategic partnerships with like-minded organizations is imperative to further contribute to the eradication of absolute poverty and attain economic empowerment of women and girls in the country.