Grant to Aid Creation of Small Businesses

Catholic Relief Services has received a $5-million matching grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development to support the creation of small businesses in Third World countries.

Catholic Relief Services officials said the grant will fund the agency’s work in five countries on three continents by enabling entrepreneurs to build small businesses--”the bricklayers, shopkeepers and landless farmers,” according to one staff member. Such small-enterprise development is essential in breaking the cycle of poverty, agency officials said.

The Catholic Relief Services grant is part of a larger global movement that seeks to shift financial assistance from large-scale development projects to small businesses.