Investing in entrepreneurship among youth, women key to development, combating extremism — Wells

AMMAN — Investments in youth entrepreneurship and education are powerful means to combat violent extremism, US Ambassador to Jordan Alice G. Wells said Sunday.

“We’ve seen how violent extremists are exploiting and tapping into the frustration of our youth,” Wells said at a session on US-Jordanian partnership, highlighting job creation as key to shared prosperity and security.

In a region characterised by the highest rate of youth unemployment in the world, the marginalisation of women in the workforce stands as a major developmental and economic challenge, the ambassador noted.

She cited experts’ estimations of a 5 per cent growth in the gross domestic product if Jordan succeeds in raising women’s participation in the labour market to 24 per cent by 2025, in accordance with the “Jordan 2025” blueprint.

Meanwhile, access to finance remains a challenge for several emerging businesses, especially small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the diplomat said.

“SMEs represent 95 per cent of all registered businesses in Jordan, but receive 10 per cent of commercial loans,” Wells said, noting that most banks have not yet considered restructuring their lending practices to facilitate financing this “crucial” sector.

The USAID/Overseas Private Investment Corporation loan guarantee programme, she added, has helped provide financing for entrepreneurial projects, and Bank Al Etihad has already utilised 94 per cent of its $10 million allocation to boost first-time entrepreneurs’ access to finance and is currently awaiting approval to double that amount.

Another challenge is young people’s preference for jobs in the private and public sectors rather than launch “risky” start-ups, she noted, citing “few, if any” new positions for job seekers in the oversized public sector.

“Despite these challenges, entrepreneurship in Jordan is growing.”

The ambassador shared the success story of Fatima, who operates a “successful” in-home repair and plumbing service in Zarqa Governorate, some 22km east of Amman. 

To encourage and support entrepreneurs like Fatima, whose business provides additional income to her family, Jordan and the US are collaborating on several projects.

US support for entrepreneurship in Jordan includes $45 million in USAID funding to the Jordan Competitiveness Programme, and $69 million to the Local Enterprise Support Project, the ambassador said.

“USAID has supported the development of more than two dozen new business ideas in the last six months, more than half of them developed by young women,” she said at the meeting, held by the Young Entrepreneurs Association and the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Liberty.

Since not all entrepreneurs are able to create successful start-ups from the first attempts, there is a need to develop a “modern and coherent” bankruptcy law that allows companies to exit the market without any form of punishment, Wells added.