Page 45 110. Cooperatives may require title to land for membership in areas where men usually hold title, which may effectively deny many women access to the advice, credit, lower input prices, and marketing assistance that the cooperatives offer (World Bank 1989a; de Beyer 1988). Few operational efforts include measures to try explicitly to increase women's participation in cooperatives, and there is little evidence on "what works" or associated costs.

111. Female entrepreneurs working in small-scale industry or business also have particular difficulty. The policy and regulatory environment tends to dampen small-scale entrepreneurs' (SSEs') incentives to produce (whether or not they are women). It may also leave SSEs, especially women, at a disadvantage in obtaining the information and resources they need to produce efficiently. Smallscale entrepreneurs may lack access to markets, for example, or larger firms may have easier access. Small-scale entrepreneurs may lack the training in management and accounting to maintain a business or the skills to cope with official red tape or unofficial harassment. They may thus have more difficulty cutting through the bureaucracy to get import licenses, foreign exchange, or operating licenses. (This may be particularly true of women, because of their relative lack of education or their relatively greater cultural restrictions). Or larger and more influential firms may simply be given special breaks in obtaining licenses or access to markets. Small-scale entrepreneurs may not be well enough organized or equipped to communicate effectively with professional organizations that supply information on improved technology -- they may be weak at "networking." Women especially may have difficulty obtaining credit (Lycette 1984). Cultural traditions and family responsibilities may keep women close to home, making it more difiicult for them to get training or inputs or to sell products (World Bank 1989a, 1989b, 1989c). Management training may be a priority.

112. From an economic point of view, of course, measures to enable small-scale entrepreneurs to compete and. operate efficiently can be attractive. They encourage private initiative and marshal private resources for investment. They can also encourage more appropriate factor proportions in countries where labor is relatively abundant: SSEs tend to be more labor-intensive and are often more willing to pay higher interest rates (or perhaps just less able to exercise the influence needed to get lower rates) (Marsden; Levitsky; Barry; Steel). Smallscale enterprises also provide much of the additional employment now being generated in many developing countries, and the cost per job created tends to be substantially lower in smaller enterprises.

113. The small-scale or informal sector and the related is5ue of providing credit to borrowers ranging from small-scale entrepreneurs to the very poorest or assetless people in rural or urban areas require much firmer understanding before reliable operational guidelines can be developed. Operational guidelines about women and credit and more broadly about the small-scale or informal sector will be developed by the Women in Development Division after considerable background analysis and project testing of innovations over the next two years.