Afghan businesswomen in search of new markets
Afghan women who run businesses manufacturing jewellery and textiles came to Istanbul last September to join counterparts from Azerbaijan and Tajikistan for an OSCE business training programme.
The guide to the jewellery production and sales centre Wedding World that sprawls over 180,000 square metres on the outskirts of Istanbul finished his explanations and opened the floor for questions. I was touring the centre with 24 women entrepreneurs and their instructors as part of an OSCE training course. They showed no hesitation as they began probing possibilities for selling their own handcrafted jewellery through the centre and plugging the quality of the precious stones they used as raw materials. By the end of the exchange, they had struck a deal to place advertisements at an advantaged rate in the company newsletter.
The women had come to Istanbul to participate in a five-day business management and training programme organized by the Office of the Co-ordinator of OSCE Economic and Environmental Activities (OCEEA) last September in co-operation with UNDP Afghanistan, the Turkish Small and Medium Enterprises Development Organization (KOSGEB) and the World Fair Trade Organization (WFTO).
For me as an outside observer, it was surprising to see them engaging so freely with a male business representative from a foreign country speaking an unfamiliar language. But Sharmistha Dasbarwa, Manager of the UNDP Gender Equality Project in Kabul, who helped to plan and teach the course, warned against false preconceptions.
When speaking about women’s entrepreneurship in Afghanistan one must keep in mind that what is meant by gender equality here is not what most of the world or even any other country in the world means. It is considered a kind of complementarity between the roles of men and women and any reform in this context is regarded as a community issue. There are very slow but important developments taking place. Women are coming out more and more.
Dasbarwa and her colleagues selected the Afghan participants for the course from the capital city Kabul and from four different provinces, Bamyan in the Central Highland Region, Herat to the west, Balkh to the north and the more conservative Nangarhar to the east. The main criterion was that they were running an established, profitable business manufacturing textiles or jewellery. The desire to explore international markets and a high degree of literacy were also important, although knowledge of English was not.
With the help of the interpreters that accompanied us, I was able to converse with the participants, most of whom spoke Farsi. Some of them told me they had returned to Afghanistan from Iran and other neighbouring countries after the end of the Taliban rule to revive old family businesses. Others had been active within the country for decades. Laila Omar Gal from Kabul, for instance, has run an enterprise specializing in baby clothes for more than 25 years. One characteristic all displayed was a dogged optimism that had allowed them to overcome what would seem like insurmountable obstacles: finding start-up financing where investment money is rare, arranging logistics where infrastructure is worse than poor, setting up production facilities in a country where women are traditionally not supposed to leave their homes.
For most of them, an important aspect of their work, either within their business or in association with an NGO, was providing vocational training to other women in handcraft skills and sometimes in reading and writing. For the trainees, earning a little money through needlework or stringing jewellery often means the chance to lift their families out of destitute poverty – adding additional impetus to these entrepreneurs’ motivation to make their marketing of high-quality laboriously crafted Afghan products succeed despite the stiff competition from cheaper quality wares from abroad.
The government of Afghanistan, an OSCE Partner for Co-operation, strongly supports women’s entrepreneurship, and the training programme offered in Istanbul was developed in response to a proposal by the Permanent Representative of Afghanistan to the OSCE, Ambassador Abdul M. Shoogufan. “Afghan women are hard-working and open to new ideas. In order to engage them in economic activities, it is essential to provide them with short-term technical support and an environment with at least a minimum of security. I therefore made the suggestion to include this training programme into the latest set of OSCE projects for Afghanistan,” he explains. The project was the first to be implemented in a set of projects the OSCE is undertaking to assist Afghanistan in coping with its security concerns in view of the planned withdrawal of NATO troop in 2014. (The projects provide support and training to Afghan citizens, but not within the territory of Afghanistan – that would require a decision by consensus on the part of the participating States.)
This is an appropriate and important initiative by the OCEEA because contributing to women’s academic empowerment will help alleviate poverty and significantly contribute to sustainable economic growth, democratic development, inclusion, security and stability in Afghanistan and by extension in the OSCE region.
Three days of classroom instruction were followed by tours of the Wedding World jewellery complex, the Istanbul Bazaar and the Aziz Bebe and Sabra textile factories.
Istanbul was chosen as the venue, because of Turkey’s strong traditional textile and clothing sectors and because of Istanbul’s easy accessibility by air from Kabul, Baku and Dushanbe. In addition to the entrepreneurs from Afghanistan, women from Azerbaijan and Tajikistan running jewellery or textile production businesses were invited to join the course. The OSCE was able to draw on its field operations in these countries to select candidates that were likely to benefit.
The social and business conditions under which the women from the three countries work often differed, yet they shared common concerns: how to procure good quality raw materials at competitive prices, how to provide efficient work facilities for their employees, how to acquire new customers and assert themselves in difficult markets. The fact that a woman producing traditional handicrafts in the Pamir mountains of Tajikistan, another specializing in collectible dolls in Baku and another spinning and weaving silk in northern Afghanistan could compare notes made for the richness of the classroom discussions.
The instruction focused on the nuts and bolts of making a business work. Sotes Linares-Rivas provided expert advice on financing: computing variable and fixed costs, evaluating cost structures, understanding the break-even point, setting competitive prices and calculating profit. Dasbarwa taught analysis of the business environment and formation of business associations. Necla Haliloglu, Entrepreneurship Development Director of KOSGEB, provided lessons in product innovation and marketing strategies, and communications expert Andrew Watson shared tools and techniques to enable the group to recognize social styles, appreciate differing business positions adopted by suppliers, clients and employees and communicate accordingly to achieve effective outcomes. “The participants’ willingness and ability to adopt and adapt new communication strategies and techniques was impressive,” said Watson.
One of the most innovative aspects of the course was the collaboration with the World Fair Trade Organization (WFTO). Fair Trade expert Michael Muchilwa spoke directly to the interest of all the women when he explained how the WFTO helps economically disadvantaged producers in developing countries gain access to international markets by providing market information, helping with export logistics and shipping costs and offering no-interest loans. “We have seen the Fair Trade principles transforming markets in South America and Africa, and there is no reason why the same thing cannot be done for the Caucasus or Central Asia,” Muchilwa said. In return, Fair Trade producers are held accountable to certain Fair Trade standards by the buyers and other stakeholders.
On the evening of the third day, the participants had the opportunity to display their wares. The austere hotel seminar room was transformed into a colourful bazaar, with glistening necklaces and earrings, shining silk scarves, artfully hooked carpets, deep velvet and soft cotton clothes decorated with embroidery and beads, bags, belts, dolls and paintings. The classroom sessions had been lively, but now the business acumen of the participants really came to light as they competed to show their wares. A lucky group of American tourists who had arrived at the hotel that evening were in for an unexpected treat!
The display was an opportunity to receive constructive feedback from the trainers. “It is important to target the right market sector,” commented Haliloglu. “When traditional techniques and high quality materials are employed, it may be best to enter the luxury end of the market.” This was a step already taken by some, for instance Mukarrama Kayumova from Tajikistan, who sells her embroidered belts in the Louvre in Paris, or by Mehriban Sadigova from Azerbaijan, who has developed a very personal collection of filigreed silver jewellery.
Some of the Afghan producers had also begun modifying their traditional products in anticipation of marketing them abroad. Rabya Maryam Joma Khan from Balkh province, for instance, whose silk scarves were outstanding for the strong simplicity of their design, explained that she had recently invested in state of the art equipment for dying silk. For others, the exercise was a somewhat sobering introduction to the requirements of foreign markets. “Some of the garments were beautiful, but too colourful or intricate for Western tastes. Precious stones in the necklaces should not be mixed with plastic, because that will devalue the product,” Muchilwa commented.
At present, the number of women working as entrepreneurs in Afghanistan is still so small as to be almost negligible,” says Dasbarwa. But it is part of working in Afghanistan to fight against incredible odds. The OSCE course was a first step in opening access to important marketing networks outside the country. Given the opportunity, these intrepid Afghan businesswomen will know how to grasp it.