Enhancing the competitiveness of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) is one of IFC’s key overall strategic objectives in Africa.
SME development presents a unique opportunity to address a number of key objectives in Africa: enhancement of economic growth, improvement in job creation and poverty reduction.
However, in order to live up to their potential to be the engine of growth for African economies, SMEs need to operate at regional and international standards, and be competitive in regional and global markets.
SMEs across the region face a number of the same challenges which prevent them from contributing more substantially to gross development product:
- Business environments in which taxation, licensing and registration dramatically increase the cost of doing business.
- Lack of capacity to deal with functional and operational deficiences at various levels, e.g. management, marketing, human resources, production & operations, finance & accounting, produtivity.
- Relatively few organized links with large businesses in need of a local reliable supply chains.
- Fragmented sectors which discourage knowledge sharing and a collective approach to advocacy.
- Lack of access to financing instruments designed for their particular needs.
- Poor access to the infrastructure necessary to bring their products and services to market.
IFC is working to expand the scale of private investment and its quality in Africa. IFC also provides advisory services to private companies, governments, business associations and through partnerships, which promotes private sector development.
