SEATINI Uganda has signed an agreement of Understanding with the Federation of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (FSME) in order to enhance the growth and competitiveness of Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs).
This is five years of partnership in which they will involve training and capacity building, research, advocacy, sensitization conduction drivers, and information sharing.
While the signing ritual, Jane Nalunga’ the Executive Director of SEATINI Uganda, stated that the deal would ensure that both organizations have clear and constructive engagement instead of a one-off meeting.
“This cooperation is very important because we need to grow our private sector and MSMEs more than ever before. This partnership will help us amplify MSMEs’ voices in the different fora at local, national, continental, and global levels,” Nalunga said.
She further stated that SEATINI Uganda had gained substantial experience in the whole research area over the years, which will help them work together and give assurity to the policies and regulatory frameworks conducive to MSMEs in the private sector.
“We are at the edge of getting out from the COVID-19 pandemic, and today we are all talking about a post-COVID-19 economic recovery, and for Ugandans and MSME, this is the key recovery. There are also key processes going on in the African Continental Free Trade Area and the growth of the East African Community, among others. This requires us to set our personal sector to provide that as a country we help from these processes, create employment, industrialize, boost production to enable people to get out of poverty.”
According to ‘John Walugembe,’ the Executive Director of the Federation of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises that the relationship with SEATINI is useful, and a sign of the MOU will also ensure that they can now engage in robust policy advocacy that will ensure that the business environment will improve the business environment for MSMEs in this country and for business in general.
According to Walugembe, we believe that when the business environment improves, everyone will get a benefit. Our cooperation also focuses on capacitating MSMEs regarding standards, finance access, and markets access.
It has been re-opened in terms of the economic state, which is a good and positive thing. However, we also have a secondary crisis of high commodity prices and inflation. This is an area of wide-area for FSME and SEATINI Uganda to cooperate because we need to engage the fiscal and monetary policymakers in this country to identify possible solutions and remedies for the MSME sector.’
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