Impact
What the programmes have changed: 4,000+ micro-entrepreneurs since 2012
This is our micro-entrepreneur programme impact: our participants have on average seen about 18% growth in revenue and 85% growth in profitability through the programme and its coaching. Our programmes deliver:
These figures are a weighted average across 974 mini-MBA participants over 7 cohorts in Pakistan and Egypt, 2012 to 2022. The Yemen cohort (2019 to 2021) is reported separately, given the wartime conditions during that period.
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Double digit revenue and profitability growth
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Financial inclusion and independence
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Local employment through business growth
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Social mobility
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Inclusion of participant’s children in mainstream education
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Improved self-esteem and sense of ‘right’
In their own words
Reflections
We reflect on this work year by year on our co-founder’s blog. Those retrospectives are linked below.
Abdul Gafoor sells threads and stitching supplies to local tailors, he used to do this from a street cart in Chakra Goth, Karachi. Six months after participating in our programmes Abdul Gafoor has moved his business into a brick and mortar store and has hired an employee from the local community to support his growing enterprise.
Kanwal is an independent tailor in Lyari, Karachi, Pakistan and this was the first opportunity she had been provided to learn how to manage and grow her business. Here Kanwal reflects on the mini-MBA programme and what she learned whilst participating in the programme.
Evidence
Selected reports and papers
Agile social transformation – 2018 retrospective
Year-by-year reflections: 2019 retrospective · 2020 retrospective · Winning in Yemen, expanding in Pakistan.
Where to next
More on our micro-entrepreneur programme impact
How these results are produced is set out under our approach, and the programmes themselves are described under our programmes: the mini-MBA for micro-entrepreneurs and Numu for young community leaders. What a participant can do by the end is on the learning outcomes page, and every edition by place and date is listed under past programmes. Where the work has been written about by others is collected on the press page.
If you want to run this work yourself, the materials are free to take under Steal Our Stuff. If you would like to fund a cohort or start a chapter in your own community, get in touch.