Jacquelyn Hamer is a retired Guyanese diplomat and a Director of the skills training organization Visions of Excellence.

By Jacquelyn Hamer
In my most recent column published in the Stabroek Business (March 27th) I dealt with, among other things, the fact that, despite some effort on my part, I have been able to learn little about the organization called the Guyana Small Business Association (GSBA) and the manner in which it functions in relation to the growth and development of the small business sector in Guyana.

I had raised this issue with the editor of the Stabroek Business who had notified me of a Waterloo Street address. While I understand that the GSBA had previously been located at this address I have been assured that this is not currently the case. The editor of the Stabroek Business has been unable to advise me as to where the Association might have been relocated to.

My curiosity about the GSBA, its role in small business development and how it functions has to do with my belief that it ought to be in a position to shed some light on the state of health of small business in Guyana.  Readers who have read my columns will recognize that I have attached some importance to the role of small business since I believe that there are a great many opportunities for the creation of modest and profitable business enterprises in Guyana and that energetic pursuit of these opportunities can contribute significantly to reducing our existing high level of unemployment. Taken together, small business ventures can also make their own fairly significant impact on the Guyana economy.

For those reasons I am keen to engage the functionaries who manage the GSBA and I have already formulated a list of questions which I will raise – if the opportunity for such engagement is forthcoming – based on the issues which I outlined in last week’s column.

Late last week, after my column had been published I learnt from the newspaper’s editor that the Head of the GSBA had been in touch with him about the column even before he (the GSBA official) had read it. Apparently someone had read it and telephoned him and, as far I  could gather, he now wishes to engage me. I am ready for and look forward to this engagement if only because I believe that it will enhance my own understanding of the nature and effectiveness of small business representation which, of course, I will pass on to readers in a subsequent column.

I have said in a previous column that there is need for a careful national assessment of the potential of small business to contribute to national economic growth as well as to wealth-creation at the individual and family levels. No less important is the role that small business can play in helping us respond to the challenges of poverty and unemployment. The sectors which, in my view, may hold the best prospects for the growth of the small business sector are fruit and vegetable farming, food processing and the art and craft production sector. In the case of agriculture I believe that the advantages lie in the availability of a great deal of arable land and the fact that modest and potentially profitable agricultural efforts can actually be undertaken with relatively small amounts of high-cost capital inputs and technical know-how.  In the cases of food processing and art and craft production, these are skills that have already been established as cottage industries and have already been in practice at the home and community levels. In fact I believe that one of the regrettable failures of the art and craft sector has been the failure to promote and take advantage of the  demonstrably high levels of skill and creativity that have been developed in our Amerindian communities.

In fact, one sometimes gets the distinct impression that our Amerindian craft is valued more for what I would describe as its show off or exhibition value than for its commercial value. I believe that our Amerindian population can actually develop an enhanced sense of self-esteem and self-belief if the outstanding examples of indigenous craft which they produce can come to be seen much more as having a commercial value that goes along with the cultural value that attaches itself to their work.

Unlike in the case of small-scale agriculture, relatively high levels of  mechanization are necessary particularly in the case of food processing. However, The evidence of increasingly available regional and international markets for manufactured pickles and preserves, for example which has come to light on account of work done by agencies like the Guyana Marketing  Corporation and GOINVEST  suggests that it may well be worth the while for local lending agencies to look more closely at these pursuits as areas for possible investment.

Incidentally, earlier this week I learnt that the Tourism and Hospitality Associa-tion of Guyana (THAG) will be seeking to engage the Guyana Art and Craft Producers Association in an effort to help local producers take advantage of such opportunities as might arise out of the promise of closer commercial ties between Brazil and Guyana. Such engagements should not only be applauded but should secure both official support and the support of agencies like the GSBA. More than that, I believe that THAG ought to expand its outreach beyond the art and craft sector and into other existing small business pursuits which, with some measure of support, may also be positioned to take advantage of markets in northern Brazil.

My real reason for wishing to engage the GSBA is to determine whether, as an umbrella organization that presents itself as a supporter of small business development in Guyana, it is in fact suitably equipped to do so. Such an enquiry, I believe, is important, not only because there are organizations which, while claiming national ‘reach’ have little influence beyond the immediate coastal areas but because a well-structured and efficient GSBA can actually help to kick start a process that could result in a genuine national interest in small business growth and development with the obvious positive spinoffs for the country as a whole. I believe that it is the responsibility of the GSBA to spearhead a national lobby that can create enhanced interest in small business development at the levels of both the government and the populace as a whole and can generate a level of interest in small business pursuits even among people who are already wage-earners in the public and private sectors.

The role of the GSBA also has to be extended into facilitating material and technical support for small businesss projects through the host of NGO’s and international organizations that provide such support. What this means, of course, is that the GSBA must have an extensive networking capacity of its own and must understand and take advantage of the contributions that some international organizations can and do play in the development of small business sectors in countries like Guyana. More than that the GSBA can partner with state agencies in seeking to attract Guyanese in the diaspora to small and medium-sized business venture possibilities in the sectors that I have already mentioned and perhaps in others.

While I accept that in its present form the GSBA may well have limited capacity I also believe that it must move as quickly as it can to enhance that capacity. As part of the process of enhancing its capacity the GSBA must develop a research capacity – perhaps with technical and financial help from other agencies – which can help foster a culture of research into best practices in the local and external small business sector, including workable  approaches to business management, production, management and marketing in specific small business sectors that have been tried and tested and have worked elsewhere. The outcomes of such research ought to be made available generally so that – along with a technical advisory service – it can directly benefit potential investors in the particular sectors.
One of the most inhibiting deficiencies to the growth of the small business sector in Guyana is our relatively underdeveloped standards of packaging and labeling and in some cases health concerns associated with the conditions under which processed products are produced. The challenges of packaging and acceptable standards of hygene are critical elements in export marketing. Apart from the fact that packaging and presentation can actually add value to products, enhanced municipal health regulations place additional pressures on exporters to meet certain standards. Again, the GSBA must seek to develop a capacity to assist small business owners in these areas. Here, specialist help could be sought as part of an education process that enables access of such training and information.

The matter of the GSBA and its role in the development of small business first arose in my mind some time ago once I began to conceptualize my columns on small business. It seemed to me at the time that for all the talk about the importance of small business in Guyana we still have come nowhere near to creating what I would describe as a national infrastructure to foster the development of a thriving small business sector. Once I had heard about the existence of the the GSBA it quickly occurred to me that I had no recollection of reading, seeing of hearing anything in the media about the work of the Association. This I considered odd since I believe that a national organization of this kind must use the media to promote itself as a means of ensuring that its services are accessible to the widest possible cross section of the country. Unless I am entirely wrong – and if I am I am prepared to say so – I get the impression that the GSBA is underexposed and, most likely, underfunded and may even have a relatively limited membership base among small business owners and persons interested in developing small businesses of their own. If there is anything that this newspaper can do to change that then I certainly do not mind being part of that process.