–‘ …”‡ƒ–‡ …‘’‡–‹–‹˜‡ ƒŽŽ‹ƒ…‡•
MBABANE - The Small Enterprises Development Company (SEDCO) received a grant from the International Trade Centre (ITC) under the project “Eswatini Promoting Growth through Competitive Alliances”.
The two development organisations then signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to establish a framework of cooperation to support the capacity development, sector support and support for the replication of training by Products Support Specialists (referred to as BSO’s in MoU) to communities and SEDCO’s clients.
The ultimate purpose of this collaboration is to increase competitiveness and sustainability of the country’s Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME), social enterprises and product associations by strengthening the capacity of the support institutions and establishing value-creating alliances amongst key stakeholders.
Resources
The MoU outlines how the ITC will provide SEDCO with financial and technical resources to contribute to the provision of entrepreneurship capacity building training to selected product support specialists and MSMEs.
ITC is expected to support SEDCO on capacity development and performance improvement, through training on knowledge management and specification measurement.
They are also expected to deliver training on access to finance and investment to SEDCO recipients.
MSMEs in the country fail to qualify for capital funding due to a lack of financial literacy.
This was revealed by Phangisile Mngomezulu, Assistant Promotional Officer at the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Trade’s micro small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) unit.
Mngomezulu revealed this at a closing ceremony of a weeklong financial literacy training held in Manzini, as part of an ongoing regional financial literacy training sponsored by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA).
UNECA is a regional commission that supports the achievement of Africa’s development agenda, through development planning, macro-economic policy and economic governance, and public finance.
Per its mandate, UNECA provided financial support to the MSME Unit to implement countrywide financial literacy training, with SEDCO as the technical service provider.
SEDCO is a government parastatal mandated to develop and promote MSME in the country by providing extensive trainings in entrepreneurship, including, financial management, recordkeeping and business planning.
Mngomezulu revealed that the trainings were mainly targeted towards MSMEs that have previously failed to qualify for funding to equip them with financial recordkeeping and business planning skills which are required by financiers. According to the MSME Policy of Eswatini, entrepreneurship is not taught at most schools or technical colleges, so most students are not trained in business management and financial literacy skills.
Training
MSME Unit Acting Director, Philiswa Dlamini, encouraged the training participants to consider establishing a savings and credit cooperative society specifically for MSMEs so they can be able to raise money to start and grow their businesses.
“A savings and credit cooperative society is another way to access capital at affordable interest rates and without the need for collateral. This is working for a lot of MSMEs in other countries like Kenya, Ghana and Canada”, said Dlamini.
Dlamini further said the participants would be able to grow and thrive if they make an effort to collaborate and also support one another.