Canada dishes out 23bn/- to help entrepreneurs
SIDO Director General Eng. Omar Bakari
The SMEs which are to benefit from the fund will come from four regions of Mwanza, Iringa, Lindi and Mtwara.
The five- year project is aimed at facilitating country’s SMEs to
improve the quality of their businesses and services that they are
currently offering as well as meet international standards.
The project is funded by Global Affairs Canada to support local
SMEs in four selected regions to overcome existing barriers of capacity
building, access to technology and finance and to eliminate challenges
faced by female entrepreneurs.
Speaking at the official launch of Tanzania Local Enterprise
Development Project (T-LED) Minister-Counselor for Development from the
Canadian High Commission, Ian Myles said the project strives to bring
together the private sector, civil society and government to encourage a
more equitable and marketable driven distribution of resources.
The overall objective of the T-LED project is to realise enhanced
equitable and sustainable economic growth and prosperity for women and
men in those regions.
The project implementation is overseen by VSO and Canadian
University Service Organization (CUSO) in collaboration with Tanzania
Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture, (TCCIA), Tanzania Women
Chamber of Commerce (TWCC) and Small Industries Development Organisation
(SIDO).
During the implementation training in business, marketing, finance
and IT services will be offered to SMEs through innovation and
enterprises centres established in the four targeted regions.
According to Myles, T-LED is an innovative project that aims to
create jobs for Tanzanians by ensuring that SMEs capitalise from
investments in the agriculture and extractive sectors.
Also T-LED project will guide SMEs in improving their knowledge of
market opportunities, business practices, technical skills, and increase
women’s capacity to develop and grow sustainable SMEs.
The project is expected to create 2,500 new jobs through the
supported SMEs, the income of 1300 supported SMEs and their employees as
well as facilitate access to new markets opportunities for the 1,760
SMEs.
The project intends to improve the quality of services provided by
partner institutions supporting the growth and development of SMEs in
Tanzania.
On his part, SIDO Director General Eng. Omar Bakari thanked the Canadian government for their financial support.
He said T-LED is an innovative project that will help SMEs provide high quality goods and services.
T-LED through its own innovation fund will facilitate
entrepreneurs’ access to new technology and through its network of
international impact investors will support the growth and development
of SMEs in Tanzania.
Dr Adelhem Meru, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Industry,
Trade and Investment suggested the need for the project to forge
collaborations to avoid unnecessary duplication of efforts that my
result into wastage of scarce resources.
“I believe effective collaboration fosters sustainability and
realisation of project objectives and it is the role of key actors in
this project to ensure gender balance as well as realising that SMEs
sector is the home of youth and people with disabilities,” he said.
