USAID Microenterprise Development Office: Services and Activities
This article is available on pages 25 and 26 of this compilation document.
The Microenterprise Development Office (MDO) was created to be the main hub of technical resources, and the management unit for central funding mechanisms, outlined by the MI. The office manages the implementation grant program (IGP), the PRIME fund, Microenterprise Best Practices (MBP), MicroServe, microenterprise impact, linkage activities and staff support MDO addresses the fundamental development goals embraced by the MI at three levels:
- Assisting poor people to increase their income and assets, thereby gaining the basis to improve their welfare;
- Increasing the skill and productivity base of the economy, so that the capacity for growth is enhanced;
- Facilitating the development of local organizations serving the microenterprise sector - organizations, which become, in effect, institutions of economic democracy.
Outlines other aims of the initiative, including the following: achieving greater outreach and significant scale by microfinance organizations, financial viability of financial services, cost effectiveness of non-financial services, local institutional development and long-term viability, reaching women and the very poor, and performance and impact information that focuses on results Describes the initiative as a set of policies, strategies and specific actions designed to make microenterprise a prominent part of USAID's economic growth strategy, "broad-based and sustained economic growth that brings the poor, disadvantaged and marginalized groups into the mainstream of an expanding economy" Concludes highlighting the fact that in most developing countries microenterprises are a major path through which poor people, especially women, participate in the economy. Microenterprises also often employ a third or more of the labor force, especially where the formal sector is small. Thus they are an important source of income and employment.
[Author's abstract]
