SMEs Get Boost For Higher Survival Rate
Pauline Dikuelo | Monday July 9, 2018 18:00
The four-year programme will involve between 80 and 100 SMEs involved in mining, agro processing, leather, textiles and infrastructure. The programme aims to develop the productive capacity of SMEs and improve their competitiveness to penetrate local and regional markets. It also seeks to better the standards of local products and services.
UNDP Supply Development Programme manager, Tumi Mbaakanyi said the initiative would take the form of training over a period of 10 to 12 months in the first year, led by dedicated trained consultants with the close involvement of buyers.
She said the programme will start in November with certified consultants being assigned their SMEs.
“The initiative will strengthen the country’s entrepreneurial ecosystem, encourage innovation and create employment,” Mbaakanyi said at the launch on Wednesday. It will connect essential small scale producers and suppliers to larger markets locally, as well as abroad.
“The search for the 25 consultants that will be working on the project is ongoing. We are almost at the short-listing stages and the selected ones will go through two-month’s training,” she said.
Once the SMEs are qualified to enter the programme they will go through a six-stage process to enhance their productivity in order to become profitable, effective and sustainable suppliers.
The methodology stages include promotion and formalisation, diagnosis, interaction, design improvement plan, implementation and follow-up, as well as documentation and systematisation. According to Mbaakanyi, the programme has been successfully implemented in South America, Asia and it is currently being rolled out in Kenya and Nigeria. She said the UNDP has plans to expand the programme to other sectors based on the market response.
The UNDP’s intervention comes at a time when local SMEs have struggled with low survival rates, especially in their initial years, due to lack of entrepreneurial skills, lack of market, lack of finance and poor quality of products.