The Arab World Must Think Big About its Smallest Businesses
To build a robust SME sector, the Middle East and North Africa must start by helping their micro-enterprises grow.
An SME in the making – if it can get the capital it needs.
Photographer: JC Aunos
After the Arab revolutions of 2011, multilateral institutions in the Middle East and North Africa began to show greater interest in the promotion of small and medium-sized enterprises as a means to inclusive development — the scarcity of which had contributed greatly to the uprisings. Donors, development institutions and banks started or expanded already existing programs for SMEs, usually in the form of credit extension and technical assistance.
This appeared logical. After all, SMEs in the region have long struggled to access capital in its various forms: financial, physical and human. Many studies and reports have shown their weak growth, and their dismal share in exports and foreign investment. The promotion of SMEs seemed a good place to start for the creation of an inclusive model of development that could combine job creation with high growth, both of which are desperately needed in MENA. And since SMEs were so pivotal to economic success stories elsewhere — in East Asia, for instance — it stood to reason that their promotion would have the same effect in the Arab world.