HSBC empowering women entrepreneurs in Sri Lanka
Although empowering women and women entrepreneurship has been a tireless effort in Sri Lanka and many local and international organisations have conducted various projects while providing training to aspiring women entrepreneurs, there is lack of proven outcome of the projects. Organisations fund and begin projects, but the end result has not much been spoken of in terms of data and measurable outcome.
On Tuesday, HSBC and Sarvodaya Movement partnered to empower women entrepreneurs in Sri Lanka during an event held at the bank’s head office in Colombo. HSBC has committed Rs. 40 million towards the project for two years, aiming to address the challenges faced by women entrepreneurs across five provinces in the country and create an environment for their business growth. The programme is implemented by Sarvodaya Fusion, the ICT for development arm of Sarvodaya.
On the sidelines of the event the Business Times raised a question, how HSBC would evaluate a measurable outcome of the project, from the bank’s CEO for Sri Lanka and Maldives, Mr. Mark Surgenor.
Mr. Surgenor responded, “This a key project for HSBC in Sri Lanka and we will be bringing our expertise from around the world while the project is ongoing. We observe the impact women entrepreneurs have made in other countries and the impact it has made when everybody engages in the workforce on equal levels and how it had impacted the economy of the country. We take learnings from other female entrepreneurs around the world in building their business and the pitfalls they might have faced.”
It’s not just about the funding and training HSBC will provide to different communities in the society, but it will see how success would look like by the end of the project, he noted. The project will begin with 150 women-led small and medium size enterprises, a snapshot of where their businesses are now will be taken and then evaluated at the end of the project.
“There has to be a measurable outcome, if we can’t prove that we have made a difference in the business progress of the women entrepreneurs, then the project doesn’t work in this country. Sustainability of business, builds the sustainability of progress, that is how we measure the success, not just having a completed project,” noted Mr. Surgenor.
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