Book Review: Microbusiness and the informal sector in Zimbabwe

My book review on Mary Johnson Osirim's new book Enterprising Women in Urban Zimbabwe: Gender, Microbusiness, and Globalization is posted on the Africa Peace and Conflict Network website.  The book is an excellent study of four informal microindustries in which women play prominent business roles.  I think the book is especially helpful to those who are designing a microfinance operation in Zimbabwe since the author makes very keen observations about the unique aspects of these microindustries, their stability, and the long-term commitment and innovation of the women who run them.

"Mary Johnson Osirim challenges much of the conventional wisdom on women’s microbusiness in Zimbabwe in her recently-published study of solo and small-scale crocheters, petty traders, hairdressers, and seamstresses. Organizations and agencies providing microfinance assistance have not historically considered these enterprises to be good credit risks compared to higher-value and more tourist-oriented microindustries. However, Osirim convincingly shows that women’s small scale businesses are not simply subsistence operations, but rather sophisticated, dynamic enterprises. While much of her data derives from before the current economic and political crisis in Zimbabwe, women in the microenterprise sector currently face challenges similar to the era during the 1990s of structural adjustment and economic transition: balancing domestic life with work; relying on networks of female relatives, colleagues, and employees to secure starting capital and invest in expansion of operations; and coping with the limitations of the administrative state during an economic contraction." (Read More...)

The book was published by Indiana University Press, Bloomington IN in 2009.