| Overview : Background and rationale Guinea-Bissau (GNB) has a history of political and institutional fragility. The economy of Guinea-Bissau is poorly diversified and is highly dependent on agriculture, fisheries, and forestry, providing up to 47 percent of the GDP, with cashew nut as the primary crop. The macroeconomic context of Guinea-Bissau is characterized by low levels of economic growth in recent years, with the country experiencing negative GDP growth of minus 1.7% in 2012, to a GDP growth of 4.6% in 2019[1] amounting to around 1.35 billion US dollars[2]. The participation of youth and women in formal economic activities is exceptionally low considering that youth, young women, represent 72% of the unemployed population in the country. In addition to the lack of economic opportunities, social and cultural norms continue to limit their participation to the informal sector, thus perpetuating and increasing inequality and depriving the country of the potential productivity of a substantial portion of its human resources. The spread of COVID-19 has exacerbated the existing vulnerabilities of Guinea-Bissau’s economy as well as its institutional weakness and public service provision. The pandemic has affected main economic actors, like informal workers and MSMEs. Sectors like agriculture, transport and tourism suffered the most. The poor and vulnerable segments of the population, mostly relying on small scale agriculture and natural resources, were the most affected. The adverse impact of COVID-19 on Micro, small and medium enterprises is quite severe. According to a recent study commissioned by UNDP to assess the impact of COVID-19 on MSMEs, the approximate average duration of firm closure was 143.1 days (about 4 and a half months) and most firms had difficulties getting supplies due to the closure of borders. Exporting firms experienced a sharp decline in exports[3]. Blue economy can be the key to recover from COVID-19 impacts and to embark on a greener and more sustainable, and inclusive development pathway in Guinea Bissau. A coherent and applicable national SIDS strategy requires the engagement of all, particularly private sector, women, and youth. The 2020-2023 National Development Strategy for Guinea Bissau highlights private sector development as a main priority to be enhanced through the improvement of an enabling business climate. However, the country ranks 174 out of 190 countries in the World Bank’s 2020 Doing Business index, with an Ease of doing business score of 43 (0 = lowest performance to 100 = best performance). Similarly, The 2021 UNDP data driven study “Building forward better for businesses in Guinea Bissau” identifies the key challenges impeding private sector development to be political instability and institutional fragility; poor and inadequate infrastructure; limited access to finance; an outdated regulatory environment and a judiciary in need of reform, with limited opportunities to women’s labor market participation and access to economic opportunities; and limited access to business skills development and finance. In this adverse context, UNDP Guinea Bissau is seeking to capitalize on the inherent entrepreneurial and creative spirit, with the high proportion of economically active women, youth, and the vibrant networks to build and support startups and capacities that will have multiplier effects in a country with a transboundary linkage to the sub/regional markets. The intervention proposed draws on the cluster development approach for creating and supporting coherent, efficient, and sustainable ecosystems that foster innovation and entrepreneurship. The ecosystems comprise a set of fundamental domains: culture and creativity, allowing policies and leadership, an appropriate amount of finance availability, quality of human capital, markets based on ventures for products, and a wide range of institutional as well as infrastructural assistance. The approach put forward in this proposal relies on the fact that “Success breeds Success.” Hence, supporting and ensuring the success of the nucleus group of innovators and entrepreneurs, while nourishing and enhancing the ecosystem domains will ensure its growth and sustainability. There are currently numerous initiatives and programmes led by local and international organizations and development partners to support private sector development, in general, and entrepreneurship and innovation. However, with limited interaction and collaboration among each other. Bringing together all these solo institutions, initiatives, standalone projects, and fragmented programmes of support into one interactive and interconnected space is what creates a functional innovation ecosystem and enables the gateway to structural transformation and promotes agents of change. UNDP is now identifying a broad network of Ecosystem builders and supporters (sub-regional/regional) to join efforts in the development of the private sector ecosystem and build on existing partnerships. To support this process UNDP is seeking to create and operationalize the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center, to provide a physical co-working and event space that will allow a connecting Innovation Hub to emerge. The Center will become the material core of the innovation cluster composed of established firms and innovative startups. UNDP will work in collaboration with Impact hub to provide design for the Innovative Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Forum, uniting the different members of the network through workshops and conferences contributing to the exchange of information, joint lessons, networking, connectivity and working and meeting spaces. The center will be suited to organizing large events, such as commercial fairs, training workshops and cultural events, making it a special asset for the creative industries. To ensure a plan to leave, the intervention will be anchored within a national structure and several practical measures will be guaranteed through planning and the long-term financial sustainability of the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center: relevant stakeholders will be welcome to set up their head offices in the building, and theconference room and working spaces can be rented to finance the expenses and maintenance of the building. This physical space will host the Innovative Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Forum. The Forum will be established following an inception workshop focused on improving our understanding of the existing needs in terms of digital infrastructure, financing, and knowledge, where the network will materialize the first steps to build a nascent cell for innovation ecosystem. This forum will be established such that it ensures continuous engagement of key stakeholders. These collaborators include people and organizations that possess the knowledge and resources to support entrepreneurs and innovators (e.g. trainers and capacity builders, incubators, providers of micro-finance and financial services, venture capitalists and investors); people and organizations that act as champions and conveners (e.g. mentors, community leaders and policy makers); those with the talents and expertise to help entrepreneurs and innovators grow (e.g. think-tanks, academic institutions, designers, creative industry, developers and researchers) and regulators and policy-makers (government ministries and agencies). Exploring partnerships with current national and regional initiatives, such as Orange’s Casa Digital working on women’s digital and economic empowerment, or UNIDO’s IDEA App program for mentoring local and sub regional entrepreneurs. Furthermore, a digital platform will support the Innovative Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Forum, with particular focus on strategic communication and awareness raising. An interactive online platform will be created to connect national and international members of the Innovative Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Forum. This platform will have a key role in facilitating knowledge sharing and learning and will catalyze the expansion of the socioeconomic role currently played by the diaspora and foreign investors. Collaboration with the creative industries will be key to making the platform attractive. A portal will be integrated into the digital platform that will assist entrepreneurs in procurement of intermediate goods and services needed for their businesses and reaching clients, marketing etc. Together with the creation of this online platform, the CO will devise a communication strategy to popularize both the project and the platform. This will inform the relevant stakeholders of the criteria and objectives of the different interventions, catalyzing expressions of interests and requests for support from MSMEs. It will also contribute to increased and improved partnerships by facilitating connectivity to existing partners, such as the Impact Hub, BMW Foundation Djassi Africa, Fabrica de Startups, and communicating the initiative and raising awareness abroad, for example across the PALOPs. To help bring the center, the forum, and the digital platform to life, UNDP is seeking to cultivate and nurture a community of entrepreneurs and start-ups that will form the socioeconomic core of the innovation ecosystem detailed above. The purpose of this is to promote a dynamic and interactive social environment where “success breeds success.” To help acquire the requisite human capital, skills, and capacities for this objective, UNDP is hiring a consultant with experience in bottom-up community cultivation specific to coworking spaces and/or impact hubs. The role of the consultant will include sharing relevant knowledge and capacities with the center’s newly recruited staff through training, while ensuring that center management practices correspond to international standards and best practices of leading entities around co-working and startup ecosystem cultivation. |
