Sustainable enterprises high on the subregional agenda

 Business enterprises operate within a specific political, social and economic context. For a business to grow, efforts at the enterprise level are not enough. To achieve sustainable development, addressing the issues related to the overall business environment is essential. The ILO is committed to creating enabling environments that help entrepreneurs expand their activities, encourage them to innovate, generate employment and invest in human resources. The ILO has devised its own assessment tool, Enabling Environment for Sustainable Enterprises (EESE), as a basis for providing evidence-based recommendations on how to improve the business-enabling environment.

 ILO Office in Moscow, in close coordination with ILO Europe, the Enterprises Department and the Bureau for Employers’ Activities, has implemented the first phase of its Enabling Environment for Sustainable Enterprise (EESE) in 5 countries. The EESE methodology is based upon 17 pillars for the enabling environment for sustainable enterprise, which were established, after thorough analysis, at the International Labour Conference of the ILO in 2007.

 In this first phase of EESE implementation, focus groups sessions were held in Armenia, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, in which about 200 entrepreneurs of different scale, gender and economic sectors participated. The ILO has implemented this activity in close coordination with the employers’ organizations, whose members participated in the focus groups.

 “Some key challenges were identified for enterprises of different economic sectors, such as farming, tourism, handicraft, ICT, transport and others,” says John Bliek, enterprise development specialist  with the ILO Moscow Office. “These include 7 pillars: access to financial services, education and lifelong learning, fair competition, trade and sustainable integration, enabling legal and regulatory environment, sound and stable macroeconomic policy and good governance,” he adds.

 These elements will be researched into in greater detail as part of a new survey, in which some 200 – 300 entrepreneurs per country will take part. The aim of the survey is to obtain in-depth information and enable the ILO with its constituents to prepare an evidence-based report with recommendations for the government and other stakeholders.

 This first important step will hopefully lead to an environment more prone to the creation of more and better quality jobs through entrepreneurship.