1
MICRO enterprises provide jobs to millions all around the world. They contribute to poverty alleviation and often rely on microcredit for financing their businesses. In the Third World, governments, microfinance institutions and the not-for- profit organisations often finance these initiatives through micro loans.
In Pakistan, the government’s role in encouraging micro entrepreneurship is rather limited. Apart from channeling such schemes through microfinance banks and the State Bank of Pakistan, the government has not played any worthwhile role in this direction.
On the contrary, several banks lament that a number of their clients have taken loans on the pretext of starting a small business but they have diverted these loans to the National Savings Schemes or elsewhere .
The impact of many micro enterprises working at the grassroots is not visible. In Pakistan, like any other country, entrepreneurship prevails at corporate, small and medium enterprises (SME) and micro levels. In corporate entrepreneurship mentoring, strategic planning and abundance of resources contribute to success.
Similarly, at the SME level, there is substantial support to promote entrepreneurship but informal entrepreneurial ecosystems generally prevails.Despite this support, the rate of success needs to be significantly improved by inculcating a culture of entrepreneurship.
Apart from finance and a limited management support, the success of the venture depends on building a business model and developing plans and competencies to survive and grow. Unfortunately, at the micro level, the not-for-profit organisations provide funding to individuals who don’t have competencies. Moreover, these individuals are not provided with complete long-term business plan. This results in the failure of venture.
The solution lies in identifying existing micro enterprises which have been working for some time (three years or so), have stayed in business for a certain numbers of years and have developed some sort of know-how to stay afloat. These enterprises are constrained in their growth due to such factors as insufficient finances and lack of marketing know-how. There are a great number of such organisations at every level in the country.
Support to these organisations will scale up businesses and result in more employment. Such organisations become the training grounds for individuals aspiring to become self-employed. Success of such a single unit can have a greater impact than the combined impact of the dozens of funded micro enterprises whose life spans is just a few months.
For development of entrepreneurship at micro level, donor and NGOs should locate and facilitate existing small entrepreneurs whose efforts can be supported with finances, HR and marketing to scale up businesses. Pakistan offers a fertile ground for expansion of micro entrepreneurship that can be promoted by incorporating the above mentioned model.
