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Entrepreneurial Response to “Bottom-up” Development Strategies in Zimbabwe

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  • Emily Chamlee-Wright

Abstract

Group lending and business training programs aimed at small-scale entrepreneurs have captured the interest of development scholars, practitioners, and donors since the 1980s. Yet these strategies have not had much impact in the context of urban Zimbabwe. Building upon ethnographic research conducted in Harare, Zimbabwe and insights drawn from the Austrian school of economics, the case is made that group lending and business training programs in urban Zimbabwe fail to meet the needs of most informal entrepreneurs because they offer a poor cultural fit with the target population, and because they are rarely able to cultivate entrepreneurial skills such as innovation and market discovery among their clients. Copyright Springer Science + Business Media, Inc. 2005

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  • Emily Chamlee-Wright, 2005. "Entrepreneurial Response to “Bottom-up” Development Strategies in Zimbabwe," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 18(1), pages 5-28, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:revaec:v:18:y:2005:i:1:p:5-28
    DOI: 10.1007/s11138-005-5591-5
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Ghatak, Maitreesh, 1999. "Group lending, local information and peer selection," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(1), pages 27-50, October.
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    5. Berger, Marguerite, 1989. "Giving women credit: The strengths and limitations of credit as a tool for alleviating poverty," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 17(7), pages 1017-1032, July.
    6. Chamlee-Wright, Emily, 2002. "Savings and Accumulation Strategies of Urban Market Women in Harare, Zimbabwe," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 50(4), pages 979-1005, July.
    7. Mark M. Pitt & Shahidur R. Khandker, 1998. "The Impact of Group-Based Credit Programs on Poor Households in Bangladesh: Does the Gender of Participants Matter?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(5), pages 958-996, October.
    8. Tendler, Judith, 1989. "What ever happened to poverty alleviation?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 17(7), pages 1033-1044, July.
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    Cited by:

    1. Virgil Storr, 2011. "On the hermeneutics debate: An introduction to a symposium on Don Lavoie's “The Interpretive Dimension of Economics—Science, Hermeneutics, and Praxeology”," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 24(2), pages 85-89, June.
    2. Eunice Maria M. N. Dos Santos & João J. Ferreira, 2017. "Analyzing Informal Entrepreneurship: A Bibliometric Survey," Journal of Developmental Entrepreneurship (JDE), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 22(04), pages 1-20, December.
    3. Emily Chamlee-Wright & Justus Myers, 2008. "Discovery and social learning in non-priced environments: An Austrian view of social network theory," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 21(2), pages 151-166, September.
    4. Emily Chamlee-Wright, 2010. "Qualitative methods and the pursuit of economic understanding," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 23(4), pages 321-331, December.
    5. Niklas Elert & Magnus Henrekson, 2021. "Entrepreneurship prompts institutional change in developing economies," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 34(1), pages 33-53, March.
    6. Storr Virgil Henry, 2002. "All We've learnt: Colonial Teachings and Caribean Underdevelopment," Journal des Economistes et des Etudes Humaines, De Gruyter, vol. 12(4), pages 1-29, December.
    7. Seung Ginny Choi & Virgil Henry Storr, 2019. "A culture of rent seeking," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 181(1), pages 101-126, October.
    8. Mavhungu Abel Mafukata & Grace Kancheya & Willie Dhlandhlara, 2015. "Adoption And Non-Adoption Of Mainstream Formal Banking Systems Amongst Low Income Earners In South Africa, Zambia And Zimbabwe," International Journal of Finance & Banking Studies, Center for the Strategic Studies in Business and Finance, vol. 4(1), pages 37-50, January.

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