SOUTH ASIA LEADERSHIP IN ENTREPRENEURSHIP PROGRAMME

Sparking a shift in Sri Lanka’s youth entrepreneurship space

Youth entrepreneurship remains one of Sri Lanka’s biggest untapped resources. Its potential to create productive employment, drive the economy forward, usher in innovation and breed a culture of socially conscious businesses is immense.

The International Labour Organization’s (ILO) South Asia Leadership in Entrepreneurship (SALE) programme is focussed on creating the changes and support structures needed to drive youth entrepreneurship forward in Sri Lanka and Nepal through several strategic interventions – the partnership with the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce being one of them.

We spoke to Director of the ILO Country Office for Sri Lanka and the Maldives Simrin Singh, and Secretary General and CEO of the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce Manjula de Silva, about the project’s ambitious plans and what it is geared to achieve.

Q: What is the prevailing state of youth entrepreneurship in Sri Lanka?
Simrin Singh (SS): Sri Lanka has done well when it comes to educating children. The issue lies with the prevailing school to work transition measures. A preferential formula is followed by students, and encouraged by parents and teachers – choose a profession, join the public service or find a job in the private sector.

There is no well developed entrepreneurial culture or ecosystem in the country. Children are not taught to take risks, be disruptors and succeed as entrepreneurs. There is no dignity in entrepreneurship for the majority – it is not considered decent work; many entrepreneurs choose their path out of necessity and desperation rather than drive and passion.

Q: And what are the challenges faced by youth entrepreneurs in Sri Lanka?
Manjula de Silva (MDS): Sri Lankan youth face problems with access to finance, markets and technology, but the biggest problem is the lack of passion, drive and support; if you’re not committed and supported, you will quit at your first obstacle.

In terms of financial support, we do see a few angel investor firms and venture capital organisations coming up albeit very sparsely.

SS: Family, society and the current education system are all part of a traditional culture in which entrepreneurship is not considered a decent career path. There are challenges in accumulating startup capital for which solutions are facilitated by the government and banks. Cultural inhibitors, and the lack of a proper support system and startup ecosystem, are more challenging to resolve.

The red oceans in which many entrepreneurs compete in are also detrimental. For example, if one takes a village, we find almost all entrepreneurs engaging in the same business. This causes inter-entrepreneur competition. What’s needed is a method by which entrepreneurs can complement each other’s businesses to achieve sustainability.

Q: Could you outline the contextual relevance of promoting youth entrepreneurship in Sri Lanka?
MDS: We’re living, studying, working and earning in a digitalised economy. The growth of digitalisation has been accelerated further by the pandemic. This has created many new opportunities for young people to succeed both locally and internationally.

In our country however, only 35 percent of the total working population is identified as self-employed or business owners.

Sri Lanka lacks an entrepreneurship ecosystem including access to resources, training, awareness and exposure to enterprise development support, which has limited the startup aspirations of many young people.

The pandemic has also shone a light on the digital inequalities faced by marginalised groups who are unable to access the internet, engage in e-commerce and at risk of losing their livelihoods. This is a significant gap that needs to be bridged if Sri Lanka is to reach its potential of building new businesses.

Q: What is your assessment of Sri Lanka’s performance in relation to diversity and inclusion when it comes to youth entrepreneurship?
SS: There are many areas where we need to improve in terms of diversity and inclusion – viz. regional disparities, gender inequalities, the wealth gap, the social status divide and disability-based discrimination to name a few.

Furthermore, there is much spatial inequality in the country – certain parts of the island have greater access to markets, higher quality education, better digital accessibility, stronger support infrastructure and so on.

Q: Can you provide a brief introduction to the SALE programme?
SS: Supported by the US Department of State, this is a two year programme targeting Sri Lanka and Nepal, executed by ILO as the lead agency. It’s an islandwide initiative driven by the goal of ensuring that young people of high school and university age view entrepreneurship as an attractive career option.

SALE will support youth entry into entrepreneurship by providing training, guidance, mentoring and raising awareness of entrepreneurial opportunities while working with local institutions to establish an enabling environment for business.

There are key objectives we will be actively pursuing: cultivating an enhanced interest in and knowledge of entrepreneurship, increasing the capacity of youth to develop and manage businesses, instilling greater appreciation for the value of entrepreneurial education and training, and ensuring that the public has a better image of and enthusiasm about young entrepreneurs.

We’re working with the government and other national authorities to reach out to schools, businesses and other related parties who make up the project ecosystem. The media is another important stakeholder since it is imperative to change the narrative around entrepreneurship in Sri Lanka.

Q: What is the role of the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce in the implementation of the SALE Programme?
MDS: There are many prospective areas where the chamber will add immense value such as gathering inputs from the corporate community, finding resource people, enabling access to finance, collaborating with the private sector and so on.

The Ceylon Chamber of Commerce represents a cross section of the business community; and depending on the need, we can source people from any field including both traditional and new industries.

Q: How will SALE be implemented to ensure diversity and inclusion in its approach and endeavours?
SS: The SALE programme will be adopting an inclusive approach to break any discriminatory barriers – a simple example is the use of all three languages in the programme.

It should be noted that SALE is not ‘a city affair’; rather, it is an islandwide initiative that will reach out to urban, suburban and rural schools, and other educational institutes, to ensure that entrepreneurship is inspired, encouraged and supported at the community level.

Q: What is the role of technology in enhancing youth entrepreneurship?
SS: Technology can play a significant role but it’s not an end in itself – it’s merely a tool or means to the end.

For instance, there is a misconception that getting qualified in ICT will lead people to a job in ICT. However, an ICT qualification mostly turns out to be an enabler to achieving the end goal – i.e. decent employment, dignified work and happy people.

Technology should be used as a facilitator to encourage entrepreneurship and enable small businesses to scale up, so that they provide more employment, generate profits and contribute to the upliftment of the economy at large.

MDS: There is an encouraging trend of young people wanting to try their hand at IT and e-commerce businesses – the lockdowns provided people with plenty of opportunities to explore this domain.

However, we need more people to go down the digital business route and more importantly, scale up so that these ventures can employ others.

Q: How is the SALE programme different to previous similar initiatives?
SS: The ILO has frameworks and resources already developed to train the youth for entrepreneurship. These can be leveraged to bring something new to the SALE programme, which is part of the ILO’s country programme in Sri Lanka and its Decent Work agenda.

We focus a great deal on building resilient enterprises to promote wellbeing and employment through several other initiatives. Yet, most existing programmes don’t have such a robust entrepreneurship focus or a dedicated school to work transition element, which is a speciality of SALE.

The end goal is the same across all projects – i.e. creating decent employment, and also supporting entrepreneurship across disadvantaged groups such as women, those with disabilities, regional and rural communities, and the digitally underprivileged sectors of society among others.

MDS: This project is special and unique given that it focusses on school level engagement. However, we need to look at what is on the ground and take stock of other projects in motion to avoid duplicating existing initiatives but build on them.

Q: How does the SALE programme plan to bolster the value and status of entrepreneurship development for young people?
SS: In addition to instilling an awareness of youth entrepreneurship at the school and community levels, the programme will also have an overall three tier annual competition. The competition will be run to identify, recognise and empower winners with appropriate certifications, advocacy by business champions, relevant prizes and study tours.

MDS: We want to get the message across to students, teachers, parents and other community leaders that entrepreneurship is a dignified profession – a message that will not only ensure success of the entrepreneur but of all those who find employment in the ventures.

SALE has many plans, promotions, awareness campaigns, competitions, training programmes and mentoring initiatives in the pipeline.

Q: How do you envisage the longevity of the programme?
MDS: In addition to school level activities, we’ll invest in people who will champion the cause of promoting entrepreneurship so that it will be embedded in our culture for Sri Lanka to benefit in the coming years.
SS: The launch of SALE and the work we’ve done so far is only the incubation period. We hope this will start the journey and accelerate the creation of a better entrepreneurial culture without it being a project in isolation.

SALE is a pilot project; the ripple effects will continue.

Sri Lanka has been a member state of the ILO since independence and the organisation is keen to continue its work here, and see an expansion of this project to target women and people with disabilities in future, as well as including elements of mental health and wellbeing.

– Compiled by Ruwandi Perera
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