An Extraordinary Year for Entrepreneurship in Pakistan

Emad Sohail

 

Workshop on Business and Economic Reporting
Workshop on Business and Economics Reporting attendees in Islamabad, September 30-October 1, 2011 (Photo: CIPE Staff)

One of the biggest highlights of the year 2011 for CIPE Pakistan was its successful back-to-back program to celebrate Global Entrepreneurship Week in Pakistan, where key impediments to entrepreneurial culture were heavily discussed and the message was well received by the business communities and universities in Pakistan.

CIPE Pakistan has taken numerous initiatives to promote entrepreneurship on different platforms. In 2011, CIPE and its partners began to explore opportunities for youth in the IT Sector whereby participants urged the State Bank of Pakistan to develop entrepreneurship with the provision of arbitration facilities and the Higher Education Commission to understand the importance of entrepreneurship as one of the mandatory subject to be taught at university level.

July 2011 brought the Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry in to action. They established Entrepreneurship Development Center (EDC), in collaboration with CIPE, to provide services and build entrepreneurial capacity among existing and prospective entrepreneurs.

CIPE Pakistan has worked steadily with Women Chamber of Commerce & Industry Peshawar to build the capacity of Women Executive Committee Members and has also supported the chamber in terms of financial assistance. Encouragingly, women entrepreneurs are gaining numbers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Business communities are now helping women entrepreneurs to increase their economic productivity, though many are still facing challenges in terms of government regulations and lack of business acumen.

October 2011 brought CIPE’s Economic Journalism workshop, organized in collaboration with Uks Research Center, in which a shortlisted group of 13 active female economic journalists representing leading newspapers, TV and radio channels from different cities of Pakistan got an opportunity to learn, participate, and gain insights into writing better business stories. The workshop’s main focus was business and economic reporting.

Dr. Javaid Laghari, Chairman Higher Education Commission, has dealt with this subject through various platforms for example Clinton School of Public Services, where he discussed how innovation and entrepreneurship are the driving forces behind the developing countries that are producing breakthroughs in everything from telecommunications to energy to defense. Specifically, during CIPE’s journalism workshop he explained the role of the Commission towards innovation and entrepreneurship.

Laghari was of the view that people need to be trained in certain skills for which HEC is introducing an American model Associate’s Degree of 2 years, based on vocations such as hospitality, medical therapy and tourism so on and so forth. The significant part in his talk was on the relevance of academic research to commercial applications. For the sake of genuine economic development, the question of relevance is very important, especially when considering the commercialization of research (innovations that bring something new, something creative) which can be converted into what we call an entrepreneurship.

The Commission moved forward with this agenda again on December 2011, when Laghari said, “the formulation of a National Innovation Policy is the dire need of the hour to change the mindset relating to promoting research and entrepreneurship in country.”

Laghari noted that many university students have great ideas, but do not have an access to finance to make those ideas a reality.  Therefore, in order to bridge the gap between academia and industry, HEC is now taking initiatives to encourage students to become entrepreneurs, in connection with which HEC will launch a scheme to help support research projects, 20% of which will be financed by industry.

Financing entrepreneurship has become a necessity as Pakistan offers a fertile ground for expansion of micro entrepreneurship, which still needs more promotion and awareness. But the ball is now rolling as the State Bank of Pakistan has asked banks to play an effective role for growth of Small and Medium Enterprise.

Indeed for CIPE Pakistan, 2011 was a successful year for entrepreneurship not just because of its increased profile but also the impact was quite visible and can be linked to specific initiatives with respected institutions. Even so, there is still a lot to do and a lot to explore.

Published Date: January 17, 2012