By Goth Mohamed Goth
In Somaliland the small business community is comprised of a large percentage of women drawn to business by the need to provide for their families and most turn to MicroDahab for assisatance.
According to the managing director of MicroDahab, Ms Hodan Ali Hassan said small-scale business run by women are successful to women being risk averse and eager to see their businesses thrive a lot of influx and demand yes and a capital does not match the demand, that is out there, so we at MicroDahab actively work with the international community.
Ms Hodan Ali added that by working directly with the international community we advise them by saying to them instead of granting grants that have not yield any positive outcome and impact. We tell them to give us(MicroDahab)as a revolving loan and which in turn we give them as profit free loan which are to 2 to 10 people at a time and when they repay we give to another 10 people so the impact is then much stronger and also long term since were on ground and rooted within the Somali community 95% .
“We offer low default rates especially to our female entrepreneurs of whom do not like to take risks and being the sole bread winners in the responsible for feeding their children, paying the rent and many more factors which makes them risk averse and whatever loan they take it with the proportional rate while putting in mind that they repay back,” Ms Hodan said.
Hodan Ali Hassan further said paying their children school fees as charity so as to separate the business and charity part and by doing so their business grow and become profitable that they can deal with the financial institutions but anything that we offer as charitable comes through Dahabshiil group as part of its corporate social responsibility.
“MicroDahab is the group’s way of giving back to the communities,” says Hodan Ali Hassan, the Chief Executive Officer of MicroDahab.
Founded in 2014, to create employment opportunities for the youth, women, start-ups and small-scale farmers to fight and reduce poverty.
MicroDahab does not require any collateral from its female clients and Self Help Groups don’t need to provide a third party guarantor. This is a unique attribute that differentiates them from banks.
