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Dr.
KHALIL HAMDANI is the MaximsNews Senior International Editor for
Economic Development and is currently based in Geneva. He is the former Director
of the Investment Division of the United Nations Conference on Trade and
Development (UNCTAD). Contact:
KhalilHamdani@MaximsNews.com
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UN:
HELPING ENTREPRENEURS
IN AFRICA by KHALIL HAMDANI:
19/01/08 (MaximsNews Network)
UNITED
NATIONS - / MaximsNews Network / - 19
January 2008 - African economies have sustained 5 per cent growth in recent years but
governments are not counting on the current commodity boom to last forever:
this time around they are providing a helping hand to a new generation of
entrepreneurs that is sprouting in the thriving local markets and starting up
the types of business that will one day diversify production out of commodity
dependence.
Tanzania, a least developed country, has
averaged 7 per cent economic growth since 2000, thanks to policy reforms,
political stability and a booming mining industry which has attracted foreign
investment and is driving exports.
Paradoxically, resource-rich economies tend
to perform less well than those with few natural resources – the so-called
“resource curse”.
Tanzania hopes to avoid the “resource
curse” by investing the revenue from mineral extraction in programs to enhance
productive capacity, such as training entrepreneurs.
This week a 10-day training workshop in Dar
es Salaam will draw 30 participants among women and young people operating
medium, small and micro enterprises in the food processing, handicrafts, hotel
and tourism sectors.
The workshop will help participants assess
their entrepreneurial potential and strengthen their business skills (such as
how to make business plans for securing bank loans).
The workshop is the first of a series to be
held in Tanzania under the UN's entrepreneurship programme, known as EMPRETEC.
EMPRETEC was launched in Argentina in 1988
and now operates in 27 countries, graduating more than 80,000 entrepreneurs,
many of whom have gone on to run successful tax-paying and export-earning
businesses.
A graduate of the Ugandan EMPRETEC center,
Harriet Tugume, who runs Scorpion Traders Ltd, recalls: “I was able to get an
unsecured loan because of my presentation, which is something I learnt from the
Entrepreneurship Workshop. My business has now been boosted and is doing very
well. I had actually contemplated closing it before the training."
“Through EMPRETEC Ghana, that is one of
the participating financial institutions for the Export Development and
Investment Fund, I was able to access loans and retool the company,” says
Augustine Hammond, who runs the garment company Jem Afrik Creations. Her firm,
which started with one worker, now has 50 permanent employees and subcontracts
to 15 former workers who have set up independent businesses. She has
representatives in the U.S., the Caribbean and Southern Africa.
The Tanzania workshop will benefit from the
experience of other developing countries, with trainers coming from Zimbabwe and
Jordan – an example of using multilateral assistance to promote South-South
cooperation.
“EMPRETEC
seeks to help promising entrepreneurs build innovative and internationally
competitive small and medium sized enterprises, and also encourages mutually
beneficial business linkages among them as well as with transnational
corporations,” says Fiorina Mugione of the United Nations Conference on Trade
and Development (UNCTAD) and Manager of EMPRETEC. “As a result, it contributes
to the development of a dynamic private sector and an open entrepreneurial
culture.”
Tanzania, it seems, is on the right track
to reaching the U.N.’s Millennium Development Goals, which involve reducing
poverty, empowering women and providing productive work for youth.
Labels:
United
Nations, U.N. Khalil
Hamdani, Economic
Development, UNCTAD,
United
Nations Conference on Trade and Development
~~~~~
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