Lessons on job creation from the developing world

Although some of the delegates were fairly dubious about whether any such lessons could be learned, a valuable debate soon emerged. It became clear that attitude is central to success. I would agree with this one hundred per cent.

People in developing nations do not stop to think too much about how difficult it is to find a job or make their business work - they just get on with it, focussing on what could be, rather than potential pit falls. This is exactly what I see in the entrepreneurs working with our Zimele and Emerge enterprise development programmes. Just changing the mind-set towards exploiting the opportunity instead of concentrating on the problem makes a massive difference.

Organisations with enterprise development schemes often use the word ‘support’ instead of ‘help’. This subtle difference is critical. Entrepreneurs who ask for help are generally focused more on the problem, while those asking for support want to learn how they can make the most of an opportunity and develop their businesses sustainably.

Technoserve referred to the need of allowing entrepreneurs to ‘self-select’ instead of us trying to ‘pick winners’. Different entrepreneurs have different levels of commitment and appetite for risk. Enterprise development schemes need to take the responsibility to design their offering in a way that helps entrepreneurs understand the value of the support. This helps them to decide whether to participate or not. I think this is crucial and is something we in Anglo American apply in our existing programmes including the new ones in Botswana, Brazil and Peru.

And why this is so important? Enterprise development programmes do not exist exclusively as a philanthropic exercise – they exist to help reduce risk to operations and projects, build capacity and strengthen relationships in local communities. They need to be able to support activity that will generate jobs and allow local communities to thrive. They need to be linked to core activities supporting the organisation. As SAB Miller stated during the round table, its initiative works best when it is embedded into the sales and distribution teams. Scale is achieved when the sales team and the heads of procurement understand the value of training and supporting small entrepreneurs. This then has the potential to improve performance, deliver a better service to the company and improve living standards.

It looks like there are some lessons that developed economies could learn from schemes in developing nations, and coming from a Peruvian who grew up between terrorism and hyperinflation in the 1980s, that definitely means something.