Shaqodoon has organized two parallel events on 20th November 2022 -
The first event of MSMEs policy advocacy has been organized with the ministry of trade and tourism of Somaliland. The event brought together all major stakeholders including Development Partners, NGOs, Government, MSMEs and associations, etc.). 200 participants attended the event During the event, the stakeholders discussed: a) elements of the policy, b) policy implementation strategy b) role of the shareholders in the policy implementation and c) available services and supports for MSMEs from the different stakeholders. By the end of the event, all major stakeholders in the MSMEs sector will be able to familiarize themselves with policy advantages and implementation strategies.
The Ministry of Trade and Tourism (MOTT) of Somaliland has developed an MSME policy implementation strategy. The MSME policy identifies seven distinct policy areas (enabling environment, entrepreneurship and skills, finance, market access and facilitation, research and development, business development services, and land, energy, and physical infrastructure) and 48 potential strategies.
The MSME sector in Somaliland is considered the most significant source of income and job creation for the Country’s population of 3.5 million particularly for young people. It is also recognized that MSMEs have significantly contributed to the post-conflict recovery and remain a core element in the country’s private sector-driven economy. MSMEs dominate key sectors including, livestock, trade, real estate and construction, agricultural production, and others as identified in table 2 below. Unfortunately, the lack of data and statistics makes it difficult to determine MSME‟s contribution to employment and GDP.
The second event was organized together with the Ministry of Commerce of Puntland. The event brought together youth entrepreneurs, women in business and government officials, key business people, banks and ecosystem activists:
inspiration, connection, and networking events in Hargeisa and Garowe on the 20th of November 2022. Event intended to encourage, advocate, connect and inspire youth entrepreneurs with early-stage startups.
In light of the fact that many startups and most SMEs fail within their first 3 years of operation due to a variety of reasons including but not limited to access to finance, lack of enabling environment, unregulated market competition, business know-how or entrepreneurial skills and lack of partnerships culture, no solid regulatory body with policies to support youth and women-led ventures.
The multi-layered barriers faced by women and youth-led businesses are exacerbated by cultural limitations on women’s role and status in male-dominated public and private sectors.
Somali women as the primary breadwinners in the family enter into the business sector as a coping mechanism with limited education, a lack of the most basic business skills necessary to run a business and a lack of networks to learn from and share experiences. On the other hand, some of the young people who are unable to secure jobs have more opportunities to leverage their economic freedom and create jobs as they choose to start and scale new businesses. However, a large number of youth-led startups fail due to different challenges as they don't do proper market research and not consider the preexisting challenges while starting their Ventures. All these barriers hindered the growth of youth and women-led businesses and brings early failure.
The event focused on these issues through co-learning and connected youth/women-led small businesses and startups but created an atmosphere to share experiences and challenges and explore policies affecting them to help their rising startups thrive.
This connector and the ecosystem-building entrepreneurial event was like an expo moment for the different business models created by youth and women and provides an opportunity for cross-learning, picking common challenges, and pinpointing mechanisms to strengthen cohesion and developing a future network for youth/women entrepreneurs.
Entrepreneurs were clustered into different tiers- tech-driven models, productive sector focusing enterprises, agriculture, energy, technology etc. and a comprehensive agenda on overarching challenges including access to finance, digitalization, market competition, policies, human resources and higher cost of operation will be walked through in a more creative and participatory fashion