CIPE’s long time partner Samriddhi, the Prosperity Foundation in Nepal is seeking to better understand why so many of their independent and small businesses never grow. What is preventing these mom-and-pop shops in Nepal from engaging in the formal economy, accessing credit, and growing their operations? What barriers do these entrepreneurs face?
Samriddhi wants to document and help tell the stories about what challenges these entrepreneurs face every day. But Samriddhi needs your help first. Using crowd funding, Samriddhi partnered with the Atlas Network: for up to $7,500 that Samriddhi raises through its crowd funding campaign, the Atlas Network will match dollar-to-dollar.
There’s only 11 days left to help them out! So read about Samriddhi’s crowd funding campaign and watch their video to help understand how you can help empower Nepali entrepreneurs.
Next week is Global Entrepreneurship Week, a worldwide celebration of the people whose big ideas drive innovation and create jobs. Join CIPE on Tuesday, November 13, from 10:30 AM to 12:00 PM EST, on the hashtag #GEWChat for a global discussion of how entrepreneurship contributes to economic, social, and democratic development. (Find out what time the chat will be in your country.)
Joining us will be CIPE partners and entrepreneurs from around the world, including:
Sarfaz Rahman is the CEO of Dawood Foundation, part of Dawood Group, one of the top family-owned businesses in Pakistan. He is a Chartered Accountant who has worked at Unilever, Glaxo Smith Kline, Pepsico, and Engro Foods.
EmprendeAhora is a program run by CIPE partner Instituto Invertir that teaches entrepreneurship and leadership skills to students in Peru.
Camelia Bulat is a CIPE consultant and the director of the Regional Center for Organization Management in Romania.
Rami Shamma is Project Manager for the Development for People and Nature Association in Lebanon, which works on youth entrepreneurship issues.
On October 16, CIPE organized a workshop on economic inclusion at the Lima Assembly of the World Movement for Democracy. Social and economic inclusion have become priority themes in ensuring that democracy delivers for all. We wanted to explore possible routes to inclusion and the implications for giving voice to excluded populations.
Our first presenter, Selima Ahmad, founder of the Bangladesh Women Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said that in Bangladesh entrepreneurship has given women a voice. Women entrepreneurs have gained the ability to make decisions within the family, and men are even joining wives’ businesses. The women’s chamber advocated successfully for women entrepreneurs to get loans without collateral. Members of the chamber who have done well now create jobs and provide help to other micro entrepreneurs.
In Peru, entrepreneurship provides the only route to move up in life for many who lack formal education. Daniel Cordova, president of Instituto Invertir, described the EmprendeAhora program, which educates young Peruvians under 25 on democratic and market concepts. This program engages youth by addressing their personal and professional interests. The key to the success of the program is giving them a concrete, entrepreneurial activity, such as starting a business or a non-government organization.
Nepal – Samriddhi, the Prosperity Foundation has initiated a monthly lecture series entitled “The Freedom School,” inviting various policy experts to speak with both graduates of the Arthalaya youth entrepreneurship program and Samriddhi, the Prosperity Foundation staffers. The series will help build the organization’s network of advisors and experts, which in turn will support advocacy efforts around the Nepal Economic Growth Agenda. The first lecture was held on August 31, with a presentation by Director General of the Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry Dr. Hemant Dabadi on changing trends in Nepal’s international trade.
Ukraine – On August 15, CIPE partner the Izmail Municipal Entrepreneurship Support Foundation completed an outreach process that included a series of focus group meetings with local business leaders. The outreach was part of an effort to identify priority issues for the small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) community in the run-up to Ukraine’s parliamentary elections set for late October. Based on input from 80 members of the local business community, the head of the Izmail Municipal Entrepreneurship Support Foundation Valentina Stoikova issued a public statement listing priorities that include the reduction of taxes, an increase in economic development funds from the government, and the reinstatement of a vocational training program operated by the government. The effort in Izmail is part of a National Endowment for Democracy (NED) -funded program in 10 Ukrainian regions to highlight the needs of the SME community over the course of the parliamentary election campaign.
Peru – CIPE partner Instituto Invertir organized a meeting with several Lima-based EmprendeAhora alumni to discuss the agenda for the upcoming alumni conference on September 29-30. Two hundred program alumni have confirmed their attendance for this first ever EmprendeAhora alumni conference. Regarding the next version of the educational program, Invertir has already received more than 2,300 applications in the run up to the September 7 deadline. Additionally, Invertir’s program coordinator was invited to speak about EmprendeAhora on the national television program, “Punto de Vista.”
Participants at the Young Entrepeneurs’ Forum event. (Photo: CIPE Staff)
“The Young Entrepreneurs’ Forum is committed to addressing the prevalence of barriers that prevent aspiring entrepreneurship from taking the first step towards an entrepreneurial career” – Shaban Khalid, Chairman, YEF.
Promoting entrepreneurship is an important priority for Pakistan’s economic development. According to Global Entrepreneurship Monitor’s 2010 report, Pakistan lags in startups, with less than half the rate of early-stage entrepreneurial activity found in other factor-driven economies. Part of the problem is that most young people coming out of universities prefer searching for a job instead of exploring entrepreneurial career opportunities – one of the key findings of CIPE-P@SHA dialogue with students and start-ups. Even young people who choose to enter paid employment often have trouble finding a job, are badly paid, or wind up in casual or informal jobs, according to the World Bank.
To help encourage a more entrepreneurial spirit among young people, the Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry recently organized a major conference for young entrepreneurs focusing on the theme of “Inspiring a New Wave of Entrepreneurship,” part of the Young Entrepreneurs’ Forum. Established in 2008, the goal of the Forum is to encourage young entrepreneurs to take on a role in policy advocacy and nurturing the next generation chamber leadership. The conference was sponsored by the US Embassy, with additional support from CIPE Pakistan. Continue reading ‘Promoting Youth Entrepreneurship in Pakistan’ »
The Paraguayan Foundation has launched a contest called “The Communicator-Entrepreneur” that will coincide with Global Entrepreneurship Week next week (see GEW Paraguay – Semana Global del Emprendedor). The goal of this contest is to increase awareness about the importance of entrepreneurship by encouraging participants to spread the word about entrepreneurship and the Foundation’s Entrepreneurship Education initiative through interviews, articles, and more. Suggested topics include: SMEs in rural and urban areas, how entrepreneurs have contributed to community development, and about the Paraguayan Foundation’s programs that promote entrepreneurship.
Comment here or share a message with the Community of Young Entrepreneurs: partners@cipe.org
Worldwide, the youth are defined as people between the ages of 10 and 25 years (Population Reference Bureau). In Africa, 200 million people are in this age range. Worldwide and in Africa as well, the ratio of the youth-to-adult unemployment rate equals three (ILO 2006), which clearly points out the substantial difficulties of youth participation in the labour market. Yet the youth employment elasticity to GDP growth is low and only a fifth of that observed for all workers (Kapos 2005). As a consequence, youth made up 43.7% of the total employed people in the world despite accounting for only 25% of the working population. More than one third of the youth in the world is seeking but unable to find work, has given up on the job search entirely, or is working but still living below the $2 a day poverty line and Africans are no exception.
The Kauffman Foundation is seeking experts on high-growth entrepreneurship policy issues to contribute to the creation of a global policy roadmap for advancing entrepreneurship. Scholars are invited to submit abstracts for papers to be considered for presentation at a roundtable discussion at the Global Entrepreneurship Congress, March 11-12, 2012, in Liverpool, UK
In Paraguay, a country with a long history of autocratic rule, the concept of entrepreneurship is not well understood. To address this problem, CIPE works with Fundación Paraguaya (FP) to bring the concepts of leadership and entrepreneurship into the national school curriculum, helping young people in Paraguay to realize their potential as future leaders of their country. For two days, more than 150 teachers from public and private schools around the country took an important first step in realizing that they have a major role to play in the spirit and practice of fostering entrepreneurship in Paraguay. Teachers walked away from the forum empowered by new skills that will allow them to start teaching entrepreneurial skills to their students.
On October 16, CIPE organized a workshop on economic inclusion at the Lima Assembly of the World Movement for Democracy. Social and economic inclusion have become priority themes in ensuring that democracy delivers for all. We wanted to explore possible routes to inclusion and the implications for giving voice to excluded populations.
Participants at the Young Entrepeneurs’ Forum event. (Photo: CIPE Staff)
