Project Notes

The Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) is a nongovernmental organization involved with multisectoral programs and income generation schemes for rural poor women. The program objective is the search for effective income generation activities to be owned, operated, and managed by BRAC's landless members. The evaluation was conducted among five restaurants in the Restaurant Program, which was initiated in 1991. Entrepreneurs started with a loan of Taka 6500 and sold tea, snacks, and meals. 273 such establishments were started by January 1993. In practice, selection of entrepreneurs was different from the designated formal selection process. Preference was given to women whose husbands or brothers already had some involvement in the marketplace. The women tended to handle the cooking, washing, cleaning, and maybe some shopping and serving, but men controlled handling of cash and keeping accounts. Restaurants make modest profits in general, but a detailed accounting of employee wages and meals for owner-operators indicated lower profits. Loans were being repaid. The analysis shows that women's position did not change, women were just as or more dependent on men, and women's respect in the community did not increase. The restaurants were run in ways reinforcing the traditional purdah and definition of space. The goal should be women's independence, access to markets, and acquisition of business skills. The recommendations are made for strictly following the selection criteria, providing training before starting the business, operating of the business in a building separate from family, assuring a uniform system of accounting, maintaining BRAC files on individual women, and testing whether a fixed amount of loan would stimulate business capability.