The intervention was as follows :
Mr. Chairman,
Excellencies, Secretary General of UNCTAD,
Distinguished delegates,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Greetings from the Seychelles.
It is an honor for us to participate in this 8th session of the Multi-Year Expert Meeting on Investment, Innovation and Entrepreneurship for Productive Capacity-building and Sustainable Development.
On behalf of the Republic of Seychelles, please allow me, to extend our thoughts and prayers to everyone affected by the virus.
Seychelles, is recuperating and the spread of the virus is under control. From an economic perspective, however, we are still suffering. As you know, as a small island nation, our economy is heavily reliant on tourism, which makes its economy highly exposed to external shock. Data collected by the Seychelles Chamber of Commerce and Industry indicate that MSMEs are most vulnerable to the after effects of COVID-19, given that most of them are highly dependent on the tourism sector. The most evident challenges are financial.
This create uncertainties for the most vulnerable groups of societies. These uncertainties are larger in small island nations and the choice between health and wealth has been more rigorous than elsewhere. The economy is expected to contract by 10 percent for 2020. Many businesses may have to downsize or even close down. It is expected that as many as 4000 employees may lose their jobs by the end of the year, 20 percent of them being from the micro and small enterprises.
The pandemic has undeniably affected every business activity, and will continue to do so for some time. The uncertainty for those who are self-employed has prompted government to introduce measures to mitigate these negative impacts from a Job Retention Allowance to a Relief Loan Scheme to Tax Rebate, Seychelles has adopted internationally recognized relief schemes. The Government has also introduced “SETS” - the Seychelles Employee Transition Scheme - to bring together people made redundant, as well as self-employed and businesspersons, whose companies have shut down with a view to retraining, reskilling them, or giving them an opportunity for temporary job placements.
With ambitious and realistic approaches, Seychelles is systematically reshaping its entrepreneurial landscape. Entrepreneurship in Seychelles embraces the spirit of the recently approved National Development Strategy, paying particular attention to people at the center of development, innovative economy, and economic transformation, whilst addressing the SDGs. In doing so, Seychelles is implementing measures to favor the emergence and recovery of resilient, inclusive and green start-up and small enterprises which are aligned with the conclusions of the previous Multi-Year Expert Meetings.
Indeed, the seventh Multi-Year Expert Meeting on Investment, Innovation and Entrepreneurship for Productive Capacity-building and Sustainable Development emphasized the key role of entrepreneurship and micro, small and medium-size enterprises (MSMEs) as one of the main drivers of job creation and important facilitators of achieving better standards of living and reduced poverty and inequality.
In that regard the seventh session of Multi-Year Expert Meeting on Investment, Innovation and Entrepreneurship for Productive Capacity-building and Sustainable Development was prescient. It made clear that linkages between inclusive entrepreneurship policies and social policies were highly relevant and this global pandemic showed that weak or often non-existent social safety nets for some workers tended to exacerbate economic insecurity and inequality. While policies that created opportunities for all were important, so were policies that reduced risks. It also recognized the importance of promoting social cohesion, reducing inequality and forging opportunities for all, especially women, youth, persons living with disabilities and vulnerable groups. Moreover, it underlined the need to strengthen local networks and raise awareness of opportunities by introducing collaborative schemes to provide access to multinational enterprise value chains to MSMEs as suppliers or distributors.
As discussed during the seventh session of the Multi-Year Expert Meeting, this requires efforts by both companies and governments, at local, national- and international-levels. This is needed to enhance the inclusive and sustainable dimensions of enterprise development. The SDGs present new opportunities and challenges for promoting inclusive entrepreneurship. Governments need to collaborate with various stakeholders, including academia, civil society and the private sector, to set up a responsive and relevant policy framework to guide entrepreneurship promotion efforts and integrate the economic, social and environmental objectives of the SDG agenda.
In this regards, Seychelles welcomed the opportunity to work with UNCTAD to evaluate its policy infrastructure to ensure it is well adapted to these new challenges. It has recently reviewed its Investment Policy with the support of UNCTAD and is committed to develop a National Entrepreneurship Policy based on UNCTAD’s Entrepreneurship Policy Framework, whose holistic approach facilitates the inclusion of specific modifications for promoting inclusive entrepreneurship for sustainable development which is even more critical in the post COVID times and for resilient, green and inclusive resurgence of the MSME sector. It is also committed to implement UNCTAD’s Empretec programme, which seeks to reach out to people from different social groups to enable them to develop their entrepreneurial skills. Empretec has created support programmes for different disadvantaged groups, for example, training specifically for low literacy entrepreneurs, as well as for strengthening the local supplier networks.
These measures and programmes that Department of Industry and Entrepreneurship Development is implementing can bring many opportunities for both entrepreneurs and Intrapreneurs and will inculcate an entrepreneurial spirit within our people, particularly the youth.
Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to take the opportunity to express our gratitude to UNCTAD for providing Seychelles with their time, skills and knowledge to help us identify the opportunities that exist for entrepreneurs, the challenges that entrepreneurs face and help devise a framework for entrepreneurship policy for our future generation. Your patience and determination during this time will help Seychelles overcome future calamities.
I hope that our discussions will be fruitful, and that it will give us all an opportunity to build back better through promoting inclusion and solidarity.
I thank you for your attention.
