SMART STEPS, SMART FINANCE
How the Smart Start Approach is Creating Local Entrepreneurs
With generous funds and support from the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF), Ethiopia’s Federal Ministry of Health (FMOH) is partnering with PSI Ethiopia (PSI/E) to scale up Smart Start through a project “Roadmap for Integrating Smart Start in Ethiopia (RISE). By 2025, RISE project has an ambitious goal to serve one million married adolescent girls aged 15–19 to access contraception in six regions of Ethiopia including two developing regions in Afar and Somali.
Smart Start is an innovative counseling tool for couples and girls that positions contraception, family planning, and economic empowerment as key assets to achieve their dreams. Smart Start counseling inspires couples to set their financial goals but is limited to counseling and does not provide the means to achieve their financial goals.
With funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundations, PSI Ethiopia used the human centered design (HCD) approach to design and test an extension of the Smart Start program called Smart Steps. Smart Steps is designed to support married adolescent girls aged 15–19 and couples under the RISE project to identify and achieve their financial goals.
HOW DOES SMART STEPS WORK?
THE BASIC STEPS
The first step of the Smart Steps counselling is a couple future mapping exercises to help them identify their family’s financial status and goals. Then, the girls are asked to join ‘Step Up Associations’ to learn more about finance and business management skills, save money from their earnings, and access low-interest loans to launch or grow their businesses. The Step- Up Associations are designed after Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLA) and are exclusive to married girls between the ages of 15 to 19. Girls who join the Step-Up Associations are encouraged to set savings goals, attend weekly skill-building activities (Infotainment, Meeting other business owners,….) and save.
After four months, girls are expected to meet the basic requirements such as regular meeting attendance and reaching their saving goals. Then, they are eligable to access a matching grant (1.5 times the amount they have saved) to launch or grow their business.
LARGE-SCALE PILOT OF SMART STEPS
Throughout the design and live prototyping phases, Smart Steps employed a set of guiding principles that have shaped the interventions.
SOME OF THESE GUIDING PRINCIPLES ARE:
- TRUST IN MARRIED GIRLS — they know best what they need to improve their lives.
- SAFEGUARDING — nothing we do or propose will bring harm to girls.
- SIMPLICITY — we seek to make this program straightforward to manage, oversee, and implement so that we can focus on serving girls well.
- SUSTAINABILITY AND SCALABILITY — we aim to build a program that would reach as many girls as possible and last beyond the timeline of donor funding.
Using these principles, PSI Ethiopia partnered with two Local Implementing Partners (LIPs) to pilot the Smart Steps in eight Woredas (Woliso rural, Sululta, Akaki, Sire, Dugna Fango, Kedida Gamela, Malga and Hawassa Zuria) selected from three regions in Oromia, SNNPR and Sidama for nine months.
PRELIMINARY RESULTS FROM THE SMART STEPS
PILOT PHASE
Over the past six months, 32 Step-Up Associations have been established, and 450 couples have created their family financial goals. Key concepts from the Smart Steps curriculum are taught to girls to increase their financial literacy, soft skills, and agency. These curriculum includes creating trust, budgeting, saving, borrowing money, paying interest, and investing. In just 13 weeks, girls have saved USD 7,881, with approximately USD 6,776 disbursed as a loan. In addition, girls are engaging in income-generating petty trades like selling vegetables and fruits, coffee, Ambasha (local bread), tea, poultry, corn flour, etc.
WHAT IS NEXT?
The Smart Steps pilot will end February/March 2023 and so far we are seeing promising results. Using the positive results from the mid-line evaluation, we are looking for additional fund to expand Smart Steps intervention into additional woredas.
TESTIMONIALS OF SMART STEPS CLIENTS FROM NIMONA SAVING AND LOANS ASSOCIATION
STORY OF DERARTU
Derartu Hola is a 16-year-old girl and member of the Nimona Saving and Loans Association (NSLA). Derartu was already engaged in business, buying and reselling sugarcane, when she joined the savings and loan association. She first started selling sugarcane with 180 ETB capital. She used to purchase large sugarcane, cut it into small pieces and sell it to make a profit of 160 ETB. Derartu has made a few changes since joining the Smart Steps counseling and saving association, she bought four chickens to sell them for a profit. In addition, Derartu and her husband Dego, planted cash crops by entering into a share agreement with a landowner.
Having saved long enough to qualify for a loan, Derartu requested and received 400 ETB from NSLA. She then used the money to hire daily laborers to collect the cash crops they had planted. Once she sold the product, she used the profit to start a new business, selling soft drinks in the community. Accessing the loan has allowed Derartu to create a more convenient and profitable business from the comfort of her home. Now she doesn’t have to travel far to buy sugarcane.
STORY OF BESHA
Besha is a 19-year-old girl member of the Nimona Saving and Loans Association (NSLA). Her Smart Steps journey began relatively late. she joined 11 weeks after the Step-Up Association was set up and members started saving. Thus, she had to pay 450 ETB upfront into the savings pool to become a member. Before becoming a mother and joining Smart Steps, Besha used to sell Areke [homemade alcohol]. However, she had to stop working when she became pregnant with a plan to start up again after her child was four months old. Besha accomplished this by joining NSLA and accessing a loan. She applied for a 500 ETB loan, which allowed her to purchase enough produce to resume her “Areke” business. She currently makes 40 ETB profit per liter by selling Areke. She is happy because she can run her trade from the comfort of her home, while taking care of her 4-month-old child.
STORY OF LENSA
Lensa is a 19-year-old working in a shop she owns with her husband and is a member of the Nimona Saving and Loans Association (NSLA). Lensa has participated in and saved money at all the Smart Step sessions.
As a result, she received a small loan of 500 ETB to increase her income. With the money, Lensa bought ingredients and tools to make and sell injera in their shop. Only when she began selling injera did she realize that injera has a short shelf life and people prefer to make it at home.
Even though Lensa had high hopes for her new injera selling business, the underperformance was quickly realized. Lensa wasn’t discouraged; she quickly stopped selling injera and used the remainder of her loan to buy and sell vegetables in her shop. Lensa is happy with the new venture; she has expanded her selection of vegetables in the shop and continues to profit from selling them.
