Mozambique: CTA launches ‘Connecting Skills’ to boost small business cooperatives, create jobs

Mozambican businesspeople aim to invest in small business cooperatives to create jobs, addressing the limited integration of these structures into formal value chains, according to a project presented in Maputo. According to the president of the Confederation of Economic Associations (CTA), Álvaro Massingue, the ‘Connecting Skills’ project in Mozambique results from a “clear diagnosis” of the national market, in which the private sector concluded that “the country’s economic growth has not generated sufficient and decent employment.” He added that more than 90% of Mozambique’s active population is engaged in the informal economy, which means “low productivity, limited access to credit, weak social protection, and reduced integration into formal value chains.” For Mozambican entrepreneurs, the project, which receives support from Italian sectoral institutions through the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation (AICS), will ensure higher economic productivity, more formal businesses, increased sustainable employment, and greater integration of women and youth into the formal economy, characterising it as a “concrete instrument for transitioning from informality to a modern, inclusive, and sustainable economy.” The implementation of the project’s pilot phase, according to the CTA president, is planned for the province of Inhambane, in the south of the country, focusing on the formalisation and strengthening of micro and small enterprises through the construction of a Business House and an events hall, which will improve the operating conditions of business associations. He added that it will also serve to establish a formalisation and technical assistance desk, provide business and technical training in strategic sectors such as agro-processing, the blue economy, and commerce, and assist in the creation of a microcredit fund targeted at female entrepreneurship.

The CTA recently requested that the World Bank ease the proposed requirements for access to financing, particularly for national small and medium-sized enterprises. Speaking to journalists on the sidelines of a meeting with the World Bank, the CTA representative, Kekobad Patel, said that under the new five-year Country Partnership Framework (CPF), worth approximately US$3 billion (€2.55 billion) and recently announced by the financial group, it is necessary to review the requirements to access this financing, as they are, in some respects, “prohibitive for small and medium-sized enterprises,” which make up the majority in the country.