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 Covering the G-20’s major new economic initiative with a focus on disaster recovery  

The first responders after a natural or man-made disaster are often existing local small businesses. Owners of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) have an existing relationship with the affected population and a vested interest in promoting a speedy and lasting recovery. They are the true grassroots of post-disaster recovery and growth. Through Ashoka Changemakers G-20 SME Finance Challenge, the G-20 has initiated a cutting edge process for finding and funding the best ways to support SMEs.
 
SMEs are the single largest contributor to employment and job creation, and account for a significant share of GDP around the world.  They are also uniquely positioned to bring communities back from devastation. As demonstrated by entrants in the Challenge and other experts and social entrepreneurs in the Ashoka and Ashoka Changemakers community, innovators in banking, finance and development are making SMEs a priority in emergency situations. These innovators are already changing the way the world reacts to disasters.
 
 
Here are some potential angles and interviews for unique, interesting coverage of disaster response and recovery, for the G-20 Summit and beyond:
 
SMEs get people back to work – unemployment is one of the greatest destabilizing forces following a crisis, and local SMEs are on the front lines of job creation.
 
  • Example: Ashoka Fellow Sabiha Shah, Founder of the Women’s Development Fund in Pakistan, is supporting women business owners in the wake of the flooding. She is working with women entrepreneurs in refugee camps to train them in new skills and business management, allowing them to support their families now and prepare to rebuild their businesses, or start new ones, when they return home. “Women in Pakistan are very skilled and very brave,” she says. “If we train them and support them they will be successful businesswomen.”
SMEs spur and transform construction – Building projects post-natural disaster represents a chance to make a lasting legacy for a deeply damaged sector.
 
  • Example: In Haiti, the damage to housing alone reached an estimated 2.3 billion USD. Build Change, founded by Ashoka Fellow Elizabeth Hauser, engages local homeowners, engineers and contractors to get new homes built safely. Her organization has put small businesses and developers to work implementing vastly improved buildings in India, Indonesia and China.
SMEs catalyze change – Amidst the devastation, recovery efforts can present opportunities to reconfigure and modernize sectors that were previously ineffective or compromised. SMEs are a catalyst for that positive change.
 
  • Example: REpower Haiti, for example, envisions a green future for Haiti’s damaged power system, by improving financing options for small and growing renewable energy providers. An entrant in the G-20 SME Finance Challenge, RePower Haiti will transform the country’s energy landscape in a radical way.
 SMEs aid in preparation and prevention – Local entrepreneurs know the lay of the land, are familiar with traditional successful prevention strategies, and have a big stake in minimizing the effects of a disaster. Their work and their success are critical to keeping the worst from happening.
 
  • Example: Ashoka Fellow Eko Teguh Paripurno of Indonesia taps into local community resources in disaster-prone areas to plan, build and lobby for policies that will minimize the devastation in future floods, fires, landslides, volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. He knows that supporting local SMEs with incentives and credit will help spur preventive measures and mitigation efforts. 
SMEs rebuild economies – For every dollar invested in an SME, twelve more dollars are generated for the local economy. That ripple effect includes increased wages, tax revenues, and market efficiency.
 
  • Example: The International Finance Corporations’ Peer Stein arrived in Afghanistan in 2002 to help start a bank geared to financing SMEs. Despite 25 years of almost uninterrupted war, the country had “an astonishingly vibrant small business community which basically provided the most essential services and whatever was needed in the market,” he says. “And particularly…the small business community [had] the right resilience coupled with dynamism that would help build some of the economy.” The bank he helped launch has now grown into the largest licensed financial institution catering to micro and small business in the country. Peer Stein is a partner in the Changemakers G-20 SME Finance Challenge. 
SMEs need rebuilding – While SMEs are a great hope for recovering after a disaster, they are also among those greatly suffering. In Haiti, 70% of the losses following the earthquake were sustained by the private sector. SMEs suffer disproportionately in manmade disasters and financial crises as well.
 
  • Example: Changemakers advisor Philippe Regnier, an expert in post-disaster SME support, has studied the factors affecting SME resilience and solutions to improve their survival in the most challenging of circumstances. 
This is just a small fraction of the resources available through Ashoka and Changemakers. For further information and to access our global community of more than 140,000 changemakers around the world, please contact:

Sarah Mintz
Community Manager
703.600.8204
 
Josh Middleman
Community Mobilizer
202.450.5452

 

 

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