Firm Surveys for Comparing Personal Initiative Training to Traditional Business Training 2013-2016

The training forms one component of the Private Sector Development Support Project, a $13 million lending operation from the International Development Association of the World Bank to the Government of Togo. The project launched a four-month communication campaign in Lomé to generate applicants for the program. This involved radio and television advertisements; banners; distributing more than 9,000 flyers; 138 information events partnering with three microfinance institutions, an association of female entrepreneurs, a government agency that works with the informal sector, an artisan's association and the Chambre Régionale des Métiers-Lomé (Regional Chamber of Artisans); and door-to-door communication to firms in 89 different neighborhoods.

At the end of this campaign, the project had received 3,396 applications, of which 3,220 met the eligibility criteria which entrepreneurs had been informed about during the communication campaign. As mentioned in the main text, to be eligible firms had to have fewer than 50 employees, not be formally registered at the Chambre de Commerce et de l'Industrie du Togo (Chamber of Commerce) or the Centre de Formalités des Entreprises (Business Formality Center), be in any sector apart from agricultural production, husbandry or fishing, and be in existence for 12 months or more.

The eligible applicants were then grouped into 47 distinct strata based on sector of activity and sales range, with equal numbers of companies then randomly chosen from each strata. This weighted the sample in favor of firms with higher sales and those in smaller sectors, while still ensuring representation from across the informal sector. In total 1,794 eligible companies were selected through this process to undergo a baseline survey, with the goal of surveying 1,500. As such, firms that were no longer interested or could not be found would be dropped.