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* Atleast Project Title is Required.
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Project No. |
GFPN 01 2011A
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Project Title |
Evaluating Business Environments to Foster Access to Trade and Growth of Women's SMEs in Southeast Asian APEC Developing Economies
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Project Status |
Completed Project
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Publication (if any) |
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Fund Account |
APEC Support Fund
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Sub-fund |
ASF: General Fund
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Project Year |
2011
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Project Session |
Session 1
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APEC Funding |
200,000
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Co-funding Amount |
274,850
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Total Project Value |
474,850
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Sponsoring Forum |
Gender Focal Point Network (GFPN)
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Topics |
Gender
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Committee |
SOM Steering Committee on Economic and Technical Cooperation (SCE)
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Other Fora Involved |
Not Applicable / Other
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Other Non-APEC Stakeholders Involved |
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Proposing Economy(ies) |
United States
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Co-Sponsoring Economies |
Indonesia; Japan; Malaysia
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Expected Start Date |
01/04/2011
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Expected Completion Date |
31/12/2012
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Project Proponent Name 1 |
Wenchi Yu
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Job Title 1 |
Policy Advisor
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Organization 1 |
U.S. Department of State, Secretary’s Office for Global Women’s Issues (S/GWI)
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Postal Address 1 |
2201 C Street, NW, Room 6805, Washington, DC 20520
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Telephone 1 |
+1-202-647-6091
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Fax 1 |
+1-202-647-7288
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Email 1 |
yuw2@state.gov
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Project Proponent Name 2 |
Not Applicable
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Job Title 2 |
Not Applicable
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Organization 2 |
Not Applicable
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Postal Address 2 |
Not Applicable
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Telephone 2 |
Not Applicable
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Fax 2 |
Not Applicable
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Email 2 |
Not Applicable
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Declaration |
Wenchi Yu
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Project Summary |
The United States proposes to implement a project to increase knowledge of the factors affecting access to trade and growth of women-owned small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in APEC developing economies. The project will support targeted quantitative and qualitative research in three APEC developing economies in Southeast Asia to identify specific legal/policy, financial, and cultural constraints to women’s entrepreneurship, with a focus on trade. It will include the publication and dissemination of findings in a report evaluating “Business Environments to Foster Access to Trade and Growth of Women’s SMEs in Southeast Asian APEC Developing Economies.” The report will contain recommendations to improve the business environment for women’s SMEs, and will be released at the 2011 APEC Women and the Economy Summit. The United States will conduct an open bid process and select the research partner offering the best value for money option to provide the highest quality output. |
Relevance |
As stated by the APEC Economic Committee, SMEs are key engines of growth of trade and economic development in APEC economies. However, their growth is often constrained by domestic structural and regulatory obstacles that create barriers to doing business and inhibit cross-border trade and investment. The 2010 APEC Women’s Entrepreneurship Summit (WES) in Japan highlighted that women-owned and managed SMEs represent an increasing portion of the SME sector and have an enormous potential for growth. However, women SMEs are often impacted differently by domestic barriers to doing business and face gender-specific obstacles that prevent them from capitalizing on the growth opportunities offered by increased trade in the region. The World Bank’s 2010 report on “Economic Opportunities for Women in East Asia and the Pacific” indicates that in economies where it is easier to do business, there are more women entrepreneurs and higher levels of women’s workforce participation. The proposed research aims to go one step further and illustrate through the case studies of three APEC economies how a gender-sensitive approach in business environments can improve the efficiency of structural and regulatory reforms. This research will support APEC’s efforts to push for such reforms and SME-friendly business environments by highlighting how barriers may differ by gender, the reforms needed to support women SMEs, and how institutional frameworks, regulations and government policies can be framed to benefit both men and women. By reinforcing its gender-sensitive approach, APEC will support the efficient functioning of markets, and help reduce domestic and gender-specific barriers to doing business. In the long run and in line with the 2011 WES’ priorities, APEC will thus play a critical role in promoting women-friendly business environments by helping to identify and remove impediments constraining women entrepreneurs, and in supporting their contributions to regional economic growth and stability. The proposed research will focus on trade constraints that are priority topics for APEC. The project’s final report to be released at the 2011 WES will be a signature APEC publication that will stimulate discussion and make a lasting contribution to mainstreaming gender in the policies of APEC economies. |
Objectives |
The project seeks to achieve the following two key objectives: 1) Produce research to increase the understanding of constraints to women’s entrepreneurship and access to trade in APEC developing economies; and 2) Develop policy recommendations for consideration by APEC and its member economies. Achievement of these objectives will help build awareness of, and interest for, the role of women and the need to create women-friendly business environments for increased trade and development in APEC developing economies. |
Alignment |
The project’s focus on APEC economies in Southeast Asia aligns with APEC’s priorities in providing funding for initiatives in developing economies. The project proposes to target three developing economies with regional trade potential – Malaysia, Philippines and Thailand – as case studies in order to highlight how a gender-sensitive approach to business environments can unleash this potential for regional trade by supporting women entrepreneurs and facilitating women’s capacity to do business. These examples will provide useful regional comparison of gender-specific barriers to trade, and offer keys for analyzing business environments through a gender-sensitive lens for application to the larger Southeast Asia and/or APEC region. While not all the findings can be extrapolated to all APEC economies, it is believed that this in-depth analysis of three APEC developing economies will provide a useful framework for other economies to streamline their own business environments with a gender-sensitive approach.
The target economies of the project were chosen to obtain a mix of high and low ranking economies on the Doing Business Index. Thailand and Malaysia’s higher rankings (19 and 21, respectively) compared to that of the Philippines’ (148) will allow for useful comparative understanding of constraints and best practices between higher and lower ranked economies. As indicated above, the 2010 World Bank report suggests that in economies with higher rankings, women face fewer barriers to entrepreneurship. The proposed research will test this hypothesis in the target economies’ SME sector while identifying the barriers likely to persist even in economies with larger shares of women in the workforce. The research will be limited to three economies to ensure feasibility of survey implementation and quality of data collection within the budget and project timeframe parameters. |
TILF/ASF Justification |
The project will build the capacity of and engage APEC developing economy members through their involvement at the research implementation, results dissemination, and policy recommendation stages. During research implementation, primary beneficiaries and stakeholders of the project such as participating APEC economy entrepreneurs, civil society leaders and policy-makers, will be active research respondents whose input will form the basis for the final research results and recommendations. The dissemination of the three-country research results in the survey countries as well as at the 2011 WES and through other fora and relevant websites, will build the capacity of research informants through their exposure to the cross-country research data and findings with potential implications at both the country and regional levels. The research findings will be vetted through the research informants as well as other critical APEC economy stakeholders so to inform and develop recommendations for policies and approaches that will benefit both men and women in the survey countries. To the extent possible, the project will also engage non-APEC stakeholders such as multi-national and/or corporate entities, policy-makers and governments, institutions of higher learning, development organizations and other NGOs, as potential supporters of APEC economy policy reform initiatives. |
Beneficiaries and Outputs |
Primary beneficiaries and stakeholders will be participating APEC economy entrepreneurs, civil society leaders and policy-makers. They will be engaged at all levels of the project by being active research respondents. Research findings will be disseminated to the participants of the 2011 WES and other fora and relevant websites. Non-APEC stakeholders will include multi-national and/or corporate entities, as well as non-APEC policy-makers and governments, institutions of higher learning, development organizations and other NGOs.
The project will build the capacity of and engage APEC developing economy members through their involvement at the research implementation, results dissemination, and policy recommendation stages. During research implementation, primary beneficiaries and stakeholders of the project such as participating APEC economy entrepreneurs, civil society leaders and policy-makers, will be active research respondents whose input will form the basis for the final research results and recommendations. The dissemination of the three-country research results in the survey countries as well as at the 2011 WES and through other fora and relevant websites, will build the capacity of research informants through their exposure to the cross-country research data and findings with potential implications at both the country and regional levels. The research findings will be vetted through the research informants as well as other critical APEC economy stakeholders so to inform and develop recommendations for policies and approaches that will benefit both men and women in the survey countries. To the extent possible, the project will also engage non-APEC stakeholders such as multi-national and/or corporate entities, policy-makers and governments, institutions of higher learning, development organizations and other NGOs, as potential supporters of APEC economy policy reform initiatives. |
Dissemination |
The United States will organize the public release of the final report at the 2011 WES and work with the APEC Secretariat and S/GWI to design one or more panels to discuss results. The report will be posted on relevant websites in conjunction with APEC events and other appropriate fora. |
Gender |
The research partner will ensure the participation and engagement of both men and women in the project through a variety of steps. These include engaging women in the design of surveys and focus group discussions; informing the design of survey instruments with gender analysis of SME owners in project countries; ensuring gender-balanced representation in survey respondents and enumerators; scheduling the times and locations of interviews and focus groups to ensure maximum participation of men and women possible; analyzing data for gender-disparities among SME owners; disseminating research results to influential women’s groups and agencies including the Women’s Business Council in Philippines, the National Association of Women Entrepreneurs in Malaysia, and the Business and Professional Women’s Association in Thailand, as well as the Ministries of Women’s Affairs, and Chambers of Commerce in each country.
This project will contribute to an understanding of gender considerations in APEC objectives through gender analysis of sex-disaggregated data on the factors affecting access to trade and growth of women-owned SMEs in APEC developing economies. In this way, this project will provide the quantitative and qualitative support needed to identify areas of gender inequality in SMEs, to encourage the strengthening of women-owned SMEs in APEC economies, and further integration of women into the global economy. |
Work Plan |
The overall workplan will work toward achieving the two primary objectives outlined above. The project timeline will last eight months, from mid March to December 2011. The detailed timeline is as follows:
Objective 1: Open bid to identify a research partner to implement this project
Mid March 2011 – Release tender for proposals from well qualified organizations to conduct the study using state of the art research and reporting methodology. A minimum of three proposals will be solicited. The United States will review and evaluate the proposals. Selection will be made using, at a minimum, the criteria of subject matter expertise, organization capacity and cost reasonableness. The proposal selected will be forwarded to APEC/GFPN for concurrence and funding.
Objective 2: Produce research to increase the understanding of constraints to women’s entrepreneurship and access to trade in APEC developing economies
Research Design and Implementation: April-June 2011
This phase will include collection and quality appraisal of existing data, survey and focus group design, enumeration and interviews in each project country.
Primary Activities:
Quantitative Research: The research partner will create and field a firm-level perceptions survey in consultation with APEC economy stakeholders such as in-country survey research firms, government ministries and the private sector. The research partner will also solicit feedback from the Gender Focal Point Network (GFPN), the Small and Medium Enterprise Working Group (SMEWG), and the Committee on Trade and Investment (CTI). In order to ensure that the survey is externally valid (representative of the population) and captures the highest quality data, the research partner will concentrate on the following critical areas:
1. Survey Instrument: The survey instrument will be tailored to gather the specific information needed to fulfill the two project objectives. The survey team will conduct extensive background research to craft the instrument. The instrument will be 10-12 pages long and require approximately 30 minutes to complete. The survey instrument will ask women SMEs to identify barriers from the policy/regulatory environment as well as social and cultural constraints that restrict their access to trade, develop effective networks, and access finance and technology, thereby highlighting women entrepreneurs’ demands for reforms. The sampling will include respondents from various sectors of the economy, and data on respondents’ educational and professional levels will be collected to assess the differences in the barriers as well in the perceptions of regulatory constraints faced by groups with different educational levels.
2. Survey Sampling: The research partner will work with the in-country survey research firms to build a sampling frame of firms that reflects the population of SMEs across various economic sectors in the capital city of each project country. There will also be a special sub-sample of women exporters taken. The research team will employ a simple random sampling strategy to ensure that the sample is representative of the diversity of women SMEs.
3. Survey Distribution: The in-country survey research firm will conduct face-to-face interviews to implement the survey through professional enumerators from survey research firms in each country. These interviews will be conducted with SME owners rather than key informants to reflect the voices and input of entrepreneurships themselves. The quality of the data collected will more robustly inform the research findings and recommendations, and provide more value for cost in this more time-consuming but effective approach.
Qualitative Research: The research partner will also conduct focus group and semi-structured interviews to gather qualitative data. As with the quantitative research, focus group and interview discussion guides will be developed by the research partner in collaboration with in-country and APEC stakeholders. The focus group interviews will target relevant female, male and mixed groups by industrial sector. The semi-structured interviews will target individual entrepreneurs, business and trade association leaders, civil society organization leaders and policy-makers. In-country survey research firms will carry out the data collection process.
Implementation Steps: Hire in-country research firms; design survey and focus group instruments; determine sampling frames; conduct survey sampling; and implement surveys, focus group discussions and interviews.
Related Outputs: Contracts with in-country research firms; research instruments; sampling frames; samples and raw data.
Data Cleaning and Analysis: June-July 2011
Primary Activities: In-country survey research firms will conduct data cleaning under the supervision of the research partner. The research partner will conduct data analysis and incorporate inputs from APEC economy stakeholders, including the GFPN, the Small and Medium Enterprise Working Group (SMEWG), and the Committee on Trade and Investment (CTI).
Implementation Steps: Clean data; conduct preliminary analysis; solicit feedback from stakeholders; and conduct final analysis.
Related Outputs: Cleaned survey data and data analysis outputs including charts and graphs.
Objective 3: Develop policy recommendations for consideration by APEC and its member economies.
Report Writing and Release for the 2011 WES: July-August 2011
Primary Activities: The research partner, in consultation with the U.S. GFPN focal point, will write the final report and will incorporate comments and feedback from other GFPN focal points on the research findings. The United States will organize the public release of the final report and work with the other economies to design one high-profile workshop with a panel of relevant stakeholders to discuss results at the 2011 WES. The panel would be chaired by a senior APEC and/or USG representative.
Implementation Steps: Write draft report; solicit feedback from stakeholders; write final report, select women SME representatives from the surveyed countries; and engage workshop participants and media.
Related Outputs: Final report, workshop agenda, participant list, and workshop and media coverage.
Report Promotion and Distribution: September-December 2011
Primary Activities: The report will be posted on relevant websites in conjunction with APEC events and other appropriate fora and will be promoted within APEC economies through GFPN, the Small and Medium Enterprise Working Group (SMEWG), and the Committee on Trade and Investment (CTI).
Implementation Steps: Post to websites; organize APEC economy workshops; engage APEC economy stakeholders; engage GFPN, SMEWG, and CTI; and engage media.
Related Outputs: Website postings, APEC economy workshops, workshop agendas, participants lists, media coverage. |
Risks |
There are several risks involved in implementing this project that will require strong risk mitigation strategies. These include:
Research Management Risk: The research may be delayed or setback in one or more countries by untimely preparation or unforeseen foreseen circumstances. This is especially true when the research partner needs to solicit feedback from outside stakeholders.
Effective mitigation strategies for Research Management Risk include early engagement with outside stakeholders and long lead times for soliciting stakeholder feedback. The research partner will also create detailed research management plans with hard internal deadlines for every step in the research process. The research partner will also engage in overlapping tasks, such as working on the survey instrument and the survey sampling strategy at the same time to make sure deadlines are met.
Low Interest: There may be low interest in the research and recommendations due to inadequate APEC economy stakeholder engagement or low media coverage.
In order to mitigate this risk the research partner will engage in a pro-active communications strategy to engage APEC economy and fora stakeholders from the outset of the research (soliciting feedback on the survey instrument, etc). The research partner will also pro-actively engage the media with a pre-report release workshop for the media, highlighting the importance of the research.
Duplication: In 2010, the World Bank released a report on “Economic Opportunities for Women in East Asia and the Pacific,” which covers some of the same topics of this project.
To mitigate duplication risks this project aims to go one step further and illustrate through the case studies how a gender-sensitive approach in business environments can improve the efficiency of structural and regulatory reforms. To further strengthen this approach, the research partner will work in close consultation with APEC economy stakeholders and APEC for to avoid duplication. |
Monitoring and Evaluation |
The monitoring and evaluation plan will aim to measure progress toward the project’s two objectives. Each objective will include Process Indicators (ensuring that the project is on track) and Performance indicators (ensuring that the project is meeting the objective) and each will have an evaluation method. The reporting schedule will also align with APEC’s internal reporting deadlines.
Objective 1: Request proposals from well qualified organizations to conduct the study using state of the art research and reporting methodology. A minimum of three proposals will be solicited. The United States will review and evaluate the proposals. Selection will be made using, at a minimum, the criteria of subject matter expertise, organization capacity and cost reasonableness. The proposal selected will be forwarded to APEC/GFPN for concurrence and funding.
Objective 2: Produce research to increase the understanding of constraints to women’s entrepreneurship and access to trade in APEC developing economies
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Process Indicators |
Evaluation Method for Process Indicators |
Performance Indicators |
Evaluation Method for Performance Indicators |
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Research deadlines met |
Verification from research plan |
Increase understanding of constraints to women’s entrepreneurship among APEC economy stakeholders |
Post-workshop feedback surveys; number of initiatives taken by APEC economy stakeholders to ameliorate constraints to women’s entrepreneurship (observational data) |
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Stakeholders engaged at all relevant stages |
Verification from feedback notes |
Increase understanding of constraints to women’s entrepreneurship among APEC fora stakeholders |
Post-workshop feedback surveys; number of initiatives taken by APEC fora stakeholders to ameliorate constraints to women’s entrepreneurship (observational data) |
Objective 3: Develop policy recommendations for consideration by APEC and its member economies.
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Process Indicators |
Evaluation Method for Process Indicators |
Performance Indicators |
Evaluation Method for Performance Indicators |
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Reporting deadlines met |
Verification from reporting plan |
Use recommendations among APEC economy stakeholders |
Number of initiatives taken by APEC economies using or referencing recommendations (observational data) |
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Stakeholders engaged at all relevant stages |
Verification from feedback notes |
Use recommendations among APEC fora stakeholders |
Number of initiatives taken by APEC fora using or referencing recommendations (observational data) |
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Workshops attended by APEC economy and APEC fora stakeholders and media |
Workshop attendance records |
Media coverage of report and recommendations |
Number of media stories about or referencing report and workshop (research partner will collect media stories in each country). | |
Linkages |
Engagement: The project will engage both relevant APEC and non-APEC fora. Primary beneficiaries and stakeholders will be participating APEC economy entrepreneurs, civil society leaders and policy-makers, as well as APEC fora including GFPN, the Small and Medium Enterprise Working Group (SMEWG), and the Committee on Trade and Investment (CTI). They will be engaged at all levels of the project by being active research respondents and providing feedback to the research process. Research findings will be disseminated to the participants of the 2011 WES and other fora and relevant websites. Non-APEC stakeholders will include multi-national and/or corporate entities, as well as non-APEC policy-makers and governments, institutions of higher learning, development organizations and other NGOs.
Previous Work: As noted above, the 2010 APEC Women’s Entrepreneurship Summit held in Gifu, Japan highlighted that women-owned and managed SMEs represent an increasing portion of the SME sector and have an enormous potential for growth. The proposed project will build on existing research and data on women’s entrepreneurship in APEC developing economies, including the abovementioned 2010 World Bank report. The project will further explore issues addressed in the report, including access to assets, business regulations, governance, and conditions for growth from the point of view of women entrepreneurs to identify specific regulations or policies in need of reform in order to reduce structural barriers to trade and economic growth. It will expand on the report’s analysis of institutional barriers to explore more in-depth the role of other barriers in limiting women’s economic opportunities. To achieve this, the project will quantify the extent to which these additional barriers impinge on women’s entrepreneurship opportunities in the target economies. The proposed project will build upon the data presented in the World Bank report from their Investment Climate Assessment and World Business Environment surveys focusing on larger firms to include smaller firms such as SMEs.
APEC’s Comparative Advantage: APEC is the best source of funding for this project for a variety of reasons. Firstly, the proposed research topic is in line with APEC’s commitment to improve the environments for trade and growth in its member economies, and increase the participation of women in these business environments. Support for the production of reliable data on the perception of the constraints faced by women SMEs and recommendations for improvement through this project will contribute to APEC’s commitment in these two areas.
Secondly, the proposed project will support the efforts of the APEC GFPN to integrate gender considerations into APEC activities by providing policy advice on gender issues.
Finally, the APEC Business Advisory Council could benefit from a better understanding of women SMEs’ constraints in its efforts to provide business input and expertise and to coordinate with government policymakers to produce outcomes that are directly meaningful and relevant to the real needs of companies seeking to trade in the region. |
Sustainability |
To the extent possible, the project overseer will select a research firm or organization that has a history of women’s empowerment and economic governance programs to implement the project. This will allow the proposed project’s research findings to complement and contribute to the organization’s on-going programming in Malaysia, Thailand, and Philippines as well as across the Asia-Pacific region, thereby ensuring sustainability of the proposed project’s impact after APEC funding will have finished.
In addition, this project will continue to have an impact on the barriers to women-owned SMEs in the three target countries in other ways. For example, the research findings and policy recommendations will be shared beyond the life of the project through partner organization websites, and other APEC and non-APEC stakeholders will be invited to publish the report on their websites. Additionally, the survey and focus group data as well as the survey instrument will be made available for further analysis by stakeholders to encourage replication of the survey and its methodology, such that the constraints to women’s entrepreneurship can be identified in more cities and APEC economies. Another means of promoting the sustainability of project impact will be to invite stakeholders and WES participants to join an online network (possibly a Facebook group) to facilitate the exchange of ideas based on research findings, and share best practices and advocacy tools for promoting the recommendations that arise from the research with their relevant policy makers. |
Project Overseers |
Project Overseer: Wenchi Yu is Policy Advisor of the Secretary’s Office of Global Women’s Issues in the U.S. Department of State. Led by Ambassador Melanne Verveer, the Office of Global Women’s Issues reflects President Obama and Secretary Clinton’s priority to mainstream women and gender issues in U.S. foreign policy. Ms. Yu assists Ambassador Verveer in mobilizing concrete support for women’s economic empowerment globally through programs and initiatives that ensure women’s and girls’ equal access to full participation in society. Ms. Yu has led the launch of key initiatives such as the Secretary’s Innovation Award for the Empowerment of Women and Girls, the mWomen Initiative that uses mobile technology for effective development and women’s empowerment, and is the U.S. coordinator for APEC gender and women-related initiatives in 2011. Prior to joining the Department of State, Ms. Yu worked on China’s human rights in the U.S. Congress and women’s human rights issues at Vital Voices Global Partnership. She has testified before the U.S. Congress.
Contractor: Research Implementer:
Implementer to be determined via competitive process outlined above. |
Cost Efficiency |
Cost considerations, including the cost-efficient use of resources, have been incorporated in the project’s design. For example, to the extent possible, the project will seek to engage a research partner with previous experience and well-established relationships with local actors in Asia, particularly in the project’s three target countries. A potential research partner with this experience, as well as long-term on-the-ground presence in Asia, will minimize start-up time and costs. This could include leveraging local staff to minimize the use of external facilitators, as well as minimizing the staff travel resources needed for conducting the proposed survey research due to the ability to field staff from in-country offices rather than outside the region. The project will also seek a research partner that may be able to contribute its own funds or in-kind cost share for the project. |
Drawdown Timetable |
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Direct Labour |
See budgeted personnel and consultant breakdown in budget table. No employees of the grantee or any government will be paid as a contractor or consultant on this project. |
Waivers |
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Are there any supporting document attached? |
No
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Attachments
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