Description:
Many economic development methods over the years have tried to solve the problem of poverty with varied success. Microenterprise development is a method that works with the poor to create small self-run businesses to increase their income, and therefore bring more freedom from disease illiteracy and discrimination. Within microenterprise development one element, called business development services, focuses on training and assisting the businesses with marketing, management, accounting or other business fundamentals. Business development services strive to teach good business practices to the poor, so they can then pull themselves out of poverty. The effectiveness of this method is extremely difficult to measure, but through a case study with Mercy Corps in Mongolia, one can see how the services have created jobs, businesses and organizations that will, prospectively, better the community and country as a whole.