Micro-enterprise is a term that refers to small businesses, often begun by the poor in the cities, towns, and villages of the developing world. Micro-enterprises generally have a few common characteristics:

• small-scale employment: micro-entrepreneurs often work alone or with unpaid family members
• hard work: simple equipment and the lack of division of labor makes for more intensive manual production
• small start-up costs : total investment ranges from a few dollars to a few hundred dollars.
• local market: micro-enterprises serve the needs of their neigboors and their comminities. 

In Central America, as in other parts of the developing world, micro-enterprise is very important to the economy because it employs a large percentage of the labor force, is often run by women, and it provides products at a local level.

Crucial to making micro-enterprise work is having a source of funding that can be tapped to make small loans to businesses. This "micro-credit" allows an entrepreneur to borrow an amount of money that can be paid back over time, in small amounts. The support TWP received from Climate Care Ltd. as a part of the Ashden Award allowed us to provide funding, as well as training, to micro-entrepreneurs in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, who in turn manufactured improved cooking stoves. These stoves could then be sold inexpensively to homes or to small woman-run tortilla businesses.

In Nicaragua, Climate Care also provided funding for a micro-enterprise stove project through TWP's partner PROLEÑA. The funding was used to start a micro-credit loan program to help poor families purchase Eco-stoves. Eco-stoves are also widely used by micro-enterprise tortilla businesses in the capital city of Managua.