Ethiopian Business
Development Services (BDS) Network
Contact:
info@bds-ethiopia.net
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Mobile
0911-24.42.70
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Addis Ababa
BDS - Newsletter
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special edition
Gondar Chamber
Library and secretarial services at Gondar
Chamber
Secretarial services
and legal advise at
Nazareth Chamber
Ethiopian Chamber
of Commerce is the umbrella organisation of the following
16 city chambers:
Adama Chamber
Addis Ababa Chamber
Assela Chamber
Assosa Chamber
Awassa Chamber
Bahir Dar Chamber
Debre Berhan Chamber
Dessie Chamber
Dire Dawa Chamber
www.diredawachamber.com
Gondar Chamber
Harar Chamber
Jijiga Chamber
Jimma Chamber
Mekelle Chamber
Nekemte Chamber
Shashemane Chamber
More on the city chambers see
Ethiopian Chamber
Will Ethiopian Chambers of Commerce be able to deliver regular and effective Services to their Members without Compulsory Membership?
Chambers of Commerce play an important role in each country. They are the representation of the national and local private business community. But to deliver efficient services to their members and to the interested public, they need the necessary financial and human resources - and they need permanent resources, not sporadic ones!
Actual Sources of Income
Actually, the income of the Ethiopian city chambers is generated by membership fees, modest fees for services and by different partners and donors. The regular income from membership fees and services cannot be sufficient to run a chamber structure with advocacy and information services in the fields of taxation, import-export, marketing, trade fair organisation, standards and quality, development of business associations, tenders, vocational training, business planning, access to finance, premises, legal issues and policy dialogue. All these issues are fields of intervention of an efficient chamber structure, but only some of these activities are sponsored sporadically by different programmes of the donors community: Worldbank sponsoring for business plan development of selected chambers, SIDA sponsoring the Private Sector Development (PSD) Hub, GTZ sponsoring equipments for some city chambers, supporting the chamber membership census, the publishing of chamber webpages and the publishing of the national business directory together with the German chamber partnership programme of SEQUA.
Lack of sufficient qualified and permanent Human Resources
But all these interventions depend on the good will of the donor community and the finance is only sporadic and project limited but not regular and permanent. In addition to this, donors do not like to finance the necessary human resources in terms of the permanent staff - and they are right, because there wouldn't be sustainability. Thus, without regular income the Ethiopian Chambers cannot develop a sufficient basis of qualified human resources, necessary for regular and efficient services. By the way, do not confound the comfortable situation of the Addis Ababa Chamber with the poor situation of most of the city chambers in the regions! Only Addis Chamber can profit from a lot of large companies in the capital of Ethiopia. After Addis Chamber may be the Nazareth, Mekelle and Dessie chambers in the most important secondary towns which can probably enable some basic services like local tradefairs, legal advice and secretarial services, but the rest of the 16 city chambers in rather rural areas and without big industries will never get the resources to develop the necessary services structure.
Compulsory Membership is
the Solution for a growing and efficient Chamber
Structure delivering the necessary Business Development Services to its
Members
The Chamber structure needs to be financed in a regular way which allows long-term planning for permanent interventions. Have a look on the following example: The first national Business Directory has been published just now in collaboration with SEQUA and GTZ. Meanwhile the GTZ MSE project has been phased out - who will take over this activity for the second edition?
Compulsory Membership
is justified
because Chambers are private Institutions of public Interest
Chambers of Commerce are private institutions
of public interest. In several countries they have taken over business
registration and license, legal advice and advocacy, train entreprises and
staffs, issue certificates - thus take over certain roles of public
interest handed over by the state: This means autonomy of the national
business community in different areas of competency. In compulsory
membership systems small enterprises can play the same role as medium and
large enterprises because they are not dominated by the most important
payers - thus, strengthening decentralised regular economic development. Compulsory membership will generate the necessary
resources to develop the infrastucture and human resources for an
efficient business development services structure. Even in rural areas
with less industrial basis, compulsory membership will generate enough
resources to run basic services with a sufficient number of qualified staff.
Compulsory Membership means strong Chambers in Independency
Compulsory membership does not automatically mean "state-controlled". Independency of the chamber structure is defined in the respective laws and compulsory membership is not contradictory but supplementary to independency because chambers will have their own budget even without donor and state subsidies.
The responsibles of the city chambers and the Ethiopian Chamber as well as the donor community interested in strengthening an autonomous chamber structure should start to initiate this necessary discussion - who will take the initiative?
BDS facilitator in Bahir Dar shoe maker's workshop
Bahir Dar bakery
Bahir Dar gifts shop
Details for download in the BDS-Powerpoint presentation of the Bahir Dar Chamber of Commerce (75 KB)
BDS approach for download see
bds-toolkit.pdf 1,4 MB
Example of Business Development
Services (BDS)
of the Bahir Dar Chamber of Commerce
The following example of BDS delivery achieved
by the Bahir Dar Chamber of Commerce shows the potential of services that
can be provided with only one BDS facilitator and a basic budget.
| Business | Services identified | Services achieved |
|
Tadele Tes....
Household and office furniture workshop |
Assist him to join other groups to secure work premises from the
municipality
|
Association of wood and metal workers created Secured premises with association Secured a two-month training in designing and costing from the Bahir Dar University, Faculty of Engineering |
|
Kasahun H/Sel.... Mirror works |
Assist to create linkages with suppliers of mirror in Addis Assist to access better business location Provide assistance on how to participate and win bids |
Linkages with suppliers of mirror effected New business location secured The operator consulted on how to participate in bids |
|
Goshiye H/Ma....
Gold smith and hotel service |
Assist him to get record keeping training for one of his staff Train him and his staff in tax assessment |
One of his staff got recordkeeping training for 5 days in collaboration with Ethiopian Chamber Training in taxation provided for 3 days by the Bureau of Finance and Economic Development of Amhara |
|
Tadele Ka....
Metal works |
Assist the operator to get loan Negotiate with the tax authority to postpone payment of accrued tax and renew his business license |
Loan secured from the Development Bank of Ethiopia Tax payment extended and the license renewed. |
| Details for download in the BDS-PowerPoint presentation of the Bahir Dar Chamber of Commerce www.bds-ethiopia.net/1-documents/exposition/bahirdarchamber.ppt 75 KB | ||
Every six months the Bahir Dar BDS facilitator selected 10 enterprises to be supported for the next five months. Together, they made a situation analysis, action plan and started implementation. In addition to that, the BDS facilitator organised meetings with more than 100 local enterprises and succeded to negotiate with the tax authority to review their tax assessment as a result of which some 333 businesses benefited from tax reduction.
Unfortunately the Bahir Dar
Chamber had to stop the BDS intervention after two runs
because of lack of finance even for one regular business advisor only!
One more reason for a sustainable financial solution for the Ethiopian Chamber structure!
Previous BDS Newsletters please visit www.bds-ethiopia.net/news.htm.
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