FCA and the African Union Commission host event to unlock SME potential for sustainable development
FCA gathered UN officials, national ambassadors and AU representatives in Addis Ababa for an event leading up to major conference on development funding. The potential of Small to Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) was identified as a key factor in sustainable development.
In June 2025, Spain will host the 4th International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4). FfD4 is a milestone conference in guiding the global development efforts towards the implementation of the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and beyond.
The conference will deal with matters related to Official Development Assistance (ODA), which is government aid designed to promote the economic development and welfare of developing countries. Stakeholders will also discuss the private sector’s role in development and are tasked to support the reform of international financial architecture.
Finn Church Aid has been engaged in advocacy work leading up to the conference since 2023, specifically emphasising the need to unlock the potential that sustainable SMEs have for job creation and national development – especially in the Least Developed Countries, an official UN classification for low-income countries confronting severe structural impediments to sustainable development.
Preparing for the FfD4, four preparatory committee meetings (known as “PrepComs”) will be held. FCA hosted a side event to the first PrepCom meeting held in July 2024 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. FCA joined forces with the African Union Commission, specifically its Department of Economic Transformation, Trade and Industry to co-organise the event entitled ‘growth-oriented SMEs as an opportunity to sustainable development.’
FCA’s Executive Representative to Private Sector Development, Jussi Ojala, chaired the meeting. He introduced the need for an dedicated “SME-track” for the FfD4 preparatory process. Drawing on the experiances and work of FCA Investments from SME-investments and business development services in Somalia, Uganda and Kenya, a case was made for the benefits of incentivising SMEs to be transparent and thus actively turning away from corrupt practices.
“For the SME-sector to be the needed game-changer in development, not only do SMEs need to drive sustainability but solutions must also be scalable,” he said.
The event was formally opened by Landry Sibomana from the Permanent Mission of Burundi to the UN. Burundi plays a central role as it acts, along with Portugal, as the co-chair of the substantive preparations in the FfD4 process. Describing the SME’s as “beacon of hope”, Mr Sibomana recalled determined efforts by his government to support the SME’s including through the establishment of a Youth Investment Bank in 2021 and a Development Bank for Women. He also deplored the fact that there is so little information about the positive success stories of the SME-ecosystem support in the developing countries, even if examples are in abundance and there are many lessons to be learned by all stakeholders.
As an example, Hanan Ahmed Abdi, a businesswomen based in Ethiopia, presented her experience running a company that manufactures reusable sanitary pads. Ms Abdi’s SME, Han’s with Care, has a strong positive social and environment impact in her community, but her business faces challenges including finding adequate financing and also high staff turnover due to more attractive job opportunities abroad.
The African Union Commission’s John Youhanes Magok noted how strongly the AU has prioritised the SME-sector development in recent years, including through the AU’s ‘Agenda 2063’ and the endorsement of a continental SME-strategy. Mr Magok introduced the idea of an African champion for SMEs. “This would significantly support the cause of the whole field,” he said
The need for new and better data on SME-ecosystems is something FCA and its subsidary, FCA Investments, is supporting. In a study conducted by FCA and FCA Investments staff ahead of the Conference on the Least Developed Countries in Doha in 2023, one of the recommendations was a SME-specific data-series. FCA is also a partner of ‘Missing Middle Opportunity Facility’ (MMOF), a venture builder supporting SMEs in developing countries.
FCA Investments website
MMOF website