The Port Sudan Small Scale Enterprise Program

Euro-Action ACORD (EAA) is a consortium of 20 European and Canadian aid agencies working in refugee farming settlements in Central and Southern Sudan, and with various rural development projects in other parts of Africa, which responded to a request from the Sudanese Commissioner of Refugees to work in Port Sudan. This was the first time the agency considered working with poor urban people, and staff were determined to understand the economic and social forces which governed life in the slums. The program noted a number of findings that will help determine its future: reaching out to women where they live and work is a very effective strategy to increase their participation in a loan program; there is a great advantage in having women work with women; the type of management training offered must be well-suited to women\u27s needs; a program to assist women entrepreneurs must take into account all the realities of their lives; the quality or relevance of technical services will be suspect if they are given free of charge; and efforts to force or encourage women\u27s individual small businesses to band together as a group are generally counterproductive and impractical