Small Businesses are Powerful Agents in Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.
When transitioning from a moment of crisis to a fundamentally new normal, further reflection is required of us. We must ask ourselves not only how our decisions and action will affect this moment in time, but also we must ask how we foresee a future for all. It is only through this type of reflection that we can genuinely and optimally create a present that is informed and encouraged by our reimagined future.
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are the only apparent solution that focuses on the inclusion of all people, independent of societal status or national identity. Negotiated for over a year by working groups across the globe, these intentionally constructed goals provide the cornerstone needed to bring about a more equitable world for all. The SDGs search to eliminate and end all social, economic, and environmental abuses at play in our current system.
The SDGs are purposefully designed to interrelate with each other, meaning if a group or business decides to focus on three of these goals, they will end up working on all of them. As micro-, small-, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) represent about 70 percent of the formal economy and about 90 percent of the total employment in the developing world; it seems as though MSMEs are the perfect sector to begin working to create and disseminate newly created systems that aid the local community while working from a global perspective.
In this moment of COVID-19, people’s financial, social, and humanitarian needs are amplified like never before. Industry, as it has for much of human history, creates the channels and timing of our lives and, therefore, holds impeccable power. We can use entrepreneurship and MSMEs to create jobs and promote markets in the world.
Overcoming Constraints
In this unique moment, groups like the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and the International Council for Small Business (ICSB) can work to unshackle the traditional constraints on MSMEs. Those include limited access to information, to strategic resources, adequate financing, to scaling solutions, to reliable electricity, in addition to favorable business environments, to competitiveness, to market concentration, and online trade readiness.
By viewing MSMEs and the SDGs together in a transformative light, we can devise solutions focused on growing prosperity with and for everyone, while working effectively at our available, finite resources. Organizations centered around promoting the work of MSMEs are empowering business owners to provide services and necessary access to the SDGs.
Financial Assistance and Future Processes
The G20 is putting forward 5 trillion dollars, and it is of the utmost importance that this money is dispersed appropriately amongst MSMEs, specifically those owned by women. In addition to financial aid, we must raise awareness of MSMEs and their ability to reach SDG opportunities by adapting tools to their needs, supporting innovation, and fostering incubators. It is from this work that we can focus on pre-emptive processes to create insurance funding for MSMEs after future economic and natural disasters.
UNCTAD works to amplify consensus building, research, and analysis of MSMEs. By creating open forums with UN Member States, they can create entrepreneurship policy frameworks. In working with partner organizations, like the ICSB, they continue to publish researched reports on trade, development, and innovation to find effective policies.
The future is of a sustainable essence, one that is created with and for all. The most encouraging way for us to imagine our best possible future is through the eyes of MSME entrepreneurs around the world. Let us hear them and let us work with them and for them.