Woord en Daad

As Woord en Daad wants to fight poverty we are seriously concerned to stimulate economic development through providing credit access and financing services and knowledge to small and medium scale enterprises as well as to create employment opportunities for alumni of education programs and jobless people. Therefore we have partnerships with strong organisations for the provision of loans, knowledge en business contacts towards small & medium scale entrepreneurs

The Woord en Daad department for Small & Medium Eenterprise Development (SMED) has been performing since 2005. Below an overview of the SMED program.

What does SMED program contain?
The SMED program contains financial help to entrepreneurs that can run their new or existing enterprise independently but not have the (full) finance meanings or access to loans. Therefore Woord en Daad via local business development partner can provide loans to qualified entrepreneurs to start or enlarge their enterprise. A reasonable interest rate will be charged for the outstanding loans. Beside of loans the SMED program can also give technical and business knowledge to the enterprises on a short and temporary basis provide by Dutch entrepreneurs and managers that dispose their time.

Target group
• SMED must directly or indirectly create employment for poor and vulnerable people.
• SMED will be further developed in phases with in time focus on certain countries. In these countries our SMED is running or starting soon: South Africa, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, Philippines, India (Bangalore and Cochin), Nicaragua, Burkina Faso and Zambia
• SMED can be executed by helping entrepreneurs with enlargement of their existing enterprise or helping new entrepreneurs by starting a new enterprise. The goal is to let the supported enterprises run independently. When finances and expertise are not longer necessary, according to your organisation and Woord en Daad, our direct involvement will be finished.

Country and partners
Woord en Daad proposes the following guidelines:
• SMED should be carried out in the local context and with contribution of local expertise.
• SMED, as well as all other programmes, shall be executed with partners in the south
• SMED could be executed with any partner with the network, knowledge and experienced people to select business, review business plans, disburse loans according to a loan manual and collect repayments in a professional and written approach.
• Condition for both, the partner organization and Woord en Daad, is that the SMED activities will take place out from a separate department/business unit (and is not related to charity activities). Woord en Daad already has established a separate SMED Unit.
• For SMED a dedicated Business Development Manager has to be appointed. He or she will be responsible for developing en supporting starting enterprises.
• After common assessment of the business case, Woord en Daad, on request, will offer knowledge and financial resources to the starting venture. This will be made available via your business development manager.
• It’s recommended to create local business networks as soon as possible.

Involvement of Woord en Daad
• The finance support is always based on a loan that is being disbursed via local partners (local partners can be also banks if possible and useful)
• The business platform with committed entrepreneurs in the Netherlands contributes to SMED money, knowledge and skills.
• Which Enterprises?

• Small and Medium Enterprises (approximately loans from 3,000 $ till 100,000 $) (not Micro),
• Starting new enterprises and enlargement of existing enterprises.

• Local ownership and pro-activity is important. Every enterprise should be lead by an experienced entrepreneur.
• If it is useful we want to connect with existing initiatives or third parties (for example sector -/chain development).

Woord en Daad and the BiD challenge
As we like to stimulate, challenge and help entrepreneurs in starting or enlarging their business, we support the BiD Challenge. Bringing networks, knowledge and financial means together is a good and stimulating environment for fighting poverty.
Woord en Daad is helping the BiD with two practical contributions:
1. Business coaches help entrepreneurs to reach the final business plan rounds with writing and presenting a good business plan.
2. A loan to a well qualified business plan in one of the countries where our SMED program is active (to be disbursed via our local partners).

Criteria for Funding
As every country has it’s own specific law, rules and details there is no worldwide common approach. But in general we use the attached feasibility sheet as criteria for assessing business plans. Funding is always provided as a loan.