Micro Finance / Credit Program and Economic Activities ~ Non ...

Characteristics of Economic activities:
The characteristics of economic activities to be supported through a savings and credit program include their scale, economic sector and the length of time participants have been involved in the activities.
Scale
The word enterprise denotes a more formal business with paid employees, fixed assets and a stable market that provides a full time living for its owner. On the other hand, participants who are motivated to earn an income from self employment are often members of households characterized by: multiple economic activities undertaken a different times throughout the year, generally conservative risk management, with a clear preference to low risk , low returns in the short term and predominately subsistence-level production, with market level production in a limited number of economic activities.
A useful conceptual devise that describe the scale of small economic activities is the IGA/ME/SE continuum, where IGA signifies Income Generating Activities and SE signifies Small Enterprises. Although the continuum always implied a middle ground between IGAs and SEs , an intermediate category, Micro-Enterprise (ME) has been added to clarify the broad grey area which previously existed. The follow are they key characteristics of IGA,ME and SE.
Income Generating Activity (IGA)
???? Mixed with house based Economy
???? Family labor
???? Little or no investment in workday
???? Traditional technology
???? Little or no fixed assets
???? Part-time and seasonal occupation for owner, multiple activities
???? Low or not skill level
???? Literate or semi-literate
Micro Enterprise (ME)
???? Mixed with house based economy but shifting to the separation
???? Family labor, apprentices, paid labor
???? Usually little investment in workday
???? Out-dated technology
???? Usually moderate fixed assets
???? Full-time occupation
???? Moderate to high skill level
???? Low to medium levels of literacy
???? Few written records
Small Enterprise (SE)
???? Separate from household economy
???? Paid labor
???? Extensive investment in workday
???? Modern technology
???? Extensive investment in fixed assets
???? Full-time occupation
???? Higher skill level
???? Literate
???? Extensive records and system

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