The empirical evidence found within the recent strategic grants given to 18 women entrepreneurs in the country by the International Trade Centre (ITC) and the UN Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) says it all - that with thorough and well-channelled support aided with the necessary ancillaries, entrepreneurship or entrepreneurs could transform and fuel a nation by creating, building and growing her economy steadily.
Within a period of three months, admirable success stories or good results were registered by the 18 women entrepreneurs who were supported with a total grant of US$300,000 to expand and grow their businesses, thereby creating jobs (The Point 19 April 2024).
The support, according to media reports, was facilitated by the International Trade Centre (ITC), the UN Capital Development Fund (UNCDF). In addition to the grants support, the entrepreneurs also received business coaching as well as digital and financial literacy courses among other aids.
Reports also have it that the grants were made through the Jobs, Skills and Finance (JSF) programme, a collaboration between ITC and UNCDF, with a grant committee that included representatives from the Gambia Women’s Chamber of Commerce, the Gambia Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Gambia Investment and Export Promotion Agency, and the Gambia Youth Chamber of Commerce, under the auspices of the Ministry of Trade, Industry, Regional Integration and Employment.
This development has demonstrated again that with meaningful support to entrepreneurship in the country, unimaginable or exponential growth can be attained in the individual, the nation and the economy through business expansion, job creation, wealth creation, poverty reduction, and increased GDP and economic transformation for the country.
For a country to reduce unemployment and poverty as well as grow business investment and improve GDP, entrepreneurship must be encouraged, and business initiators, risk takers and financiers should be supported to set up and grow enterprises. Without entrepreneurs, there is little or no business. It has been noted that a nation’s greatest business asset is its stock of small-scale entrepreneurs, the likes of Gambricks, clothing maker K Creations, herbal tea producer Yaxare, fashion designer Dignified and the thousands of small-scale entrepreneurs who struggle day in day out to expand their businesses and grow the economy. These kinds of risk takers must be supported.
Today, in rich countries, entrepreneurs are the modern heroes and heroines. Well thought-out systems and institutions have been put in place to help them create new products and processes or present old products in new guises.
The most prosperous economies in the world today are also those that have the largest numbers of successful small- and medium-sized enterprises. The massive economies of the US, the UK, China, India and other industrialised nations are fuelled not necessarily by the big guns or grand corporations, firms and companies. These economies are really made to flow impressively by the millions of small-scale entrepreneurs constantly working to improve their businesses.
Thus, support must be given to those with ideas and ambition, determination, energy, skills and the courage of their beliefs to set up businesses, build them, and grow the economy.
Regarding the 18 women beneficiaries, a very essential buffer lent to the grants support was the capacity strengthening given to them in the form of business coaching as well as digital and financial literacy courses. That is very vital to guide and hone the skills and business acumen of small- and medium-scale entrepreneurs. May I also say that to be highly guided in the journey of entrepreneurship, one has to maintain and sustain credible features germane to business.
The fact remains that running a business is not just a matter of sales and financial control - the two aspects most people consider. A business, economist and author Rodney Willet states, is about people - about those who start it, their customers, their employees and their other business contacts. It is about integrity, thought, decision making, humour, despair, exultation and self-discipline.
Financial and business specialists Graham Bannock, Evan Davis, Paul Trott and Mark Uncles all agree on the fact that entrepreneurship, in general, is the process leading to any new venture creation. A new venture, they say, is a response to a new business opportunity, such as the creation of a new company to exploit business opportunities in an emergent market. At a minimum, they contend, this process has the following stages: opportunity recognition, strategy development, specification of the venture’s requirements and potential, assembly of the resources and financing, and starting the venture.
A narrower description sees entrepreneurship as concerned with developing innovative new ventures - with an emphasis on invention and innovation in response to changing environments, this crop of finance specialists states: “The new ventures may be developed by independent organisations, the latter being termed ‘corporate entrepreneurship or ‘intrapreneurship’. Developments in industrial sectors such as telecommunications, media, e-business, computing and biotechnology have led to growing interest in entrepreneurship. In addition to these sector-based opportunities, there have also been geographical-based opportunities; for example, new ventures in emergent Chinese markets (termed ‘international entrepreneurship’).”
Entrepreneurship can go a long way to positively transform The Gambia’s economy, only if much attention is paid to it with strategic support given to risk takers and those who are constantly working to improve their businesses, those with ideas, ambition, energy, skills and the courage of their convictions to create businesses, build them, and grow the economy - such people as the 18 women entrepreneurs supported by the International Trade Centre, the UN Capital Development Fund, and Jobs, Skills and Finance (JSF).
