• Commonwealth:
• News:
• News Archive Search:
• From jams to jellies

From jams to jellies

16 January 2008

Commonwealth programme used as a platform for countries to share experiences in SME development

Giving more women an opportunity to achieve their ambitions must go hand-in-hand with a country’s economic development. This belief is held by Selima Ahmad, a 47-year-old mother of two who set up Bangladesh’s Chamber of Commerce, a non-profit organisation which helps women entrepreneurs.

This organisation represents nearly one thousand micro and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) as well as a further 10,000 entrepreneurs across Bangladesh.

Ms Ahmad recently attended the seventh Commonwealth-India Business Programme, which took place in Kochi, in the Indian state of Kerala, between 7 and 11 December 2007. The programme was established to help develop SMEs across the Commonwealth, like those represented by Ms Ahmad.

The Commonwealth Fund for Technical Co-operation and the Government of India collaborated on this venture which looks at ways to alleviate poverty by helping local economies to develop through sustainable SMEs.

A number of products developed by successful SMEs were showcased during the programme, including button mushrooms from Sri Lanka, jams and jellies from St Lucia and gift accessories from Swaziland. This was in order to help those present to introduce successful methods in their respective countries.

“All countries have both problems and prospects. At the conference I learned from the various achievements of countries which I would now like to replicate and introduce in Bangladesh,” said Ms Ahmad.

Using natural resources like coir – coconut fibre – was one of the ideas Ms Ahmad took from the conference as a way to boost local economies in her home country. She has already had a preliminary discussion on this subject with the Minister of Industry.

“I learned that local economies can be boosted by using local raw materials. This is an important lesson that will hopefully help more successful small businesses to be set up,” Ms Ahmad added.

In a similar vein, Sherine Peerez, who owns a garment business and factory in Colombo, Sri Lanka, commented on how the programme introduced her to the potential opportunities available to women at all levels of business.

The programme also highlighted recent successes in Kerala where SMEs were developed and sustained successfully. “[Kerala] is a place where the poor can find the strength to come up in life,” Ms Peerez observed.

Another high profile event which took place during the week-long programme was a presentation on Exim Bank’s role in helping SMEs throughout India. The chief general manager of the bank, S Muthukumaran, told ‘The Hindu’ newspaper after the presentation that their innovative methods of financing SMEs had been highly successful.

By highlighting these methods and other areas which have achieved sustained success in India and other Commonwealth countries, the programme aimed to show participants useful information that they can take back and implement in their own countries. In this way, effective models need not only benefit the countries they originate in, but the Commonwealth as a whole.