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Years ago, Manal used to go to Al-Hashemi Market in the Yemeni city of Aden (south) to sell homemade baked goods while she was veiled, and she was forced to lower her voice when someone from her neighborhood approached in the market. However, if he went directly to her to buy from her, she would deal with him by pointing or trying to change her voice so that He doesn’t recognize her.

Manal was not ashamed of practicing this profession in itself, and the people of her neighborhood knew that she sold the bread that she made with the help of her mother, but they did not know where she went to sell it. The reason for her shyness was because she feared their interference if a dispute occurred between her and one of the customers or sellers in the market. Or have been subjected to harassment and harassment.

Finally, Manal married her colleague in the College of Engineering at the University of Aden, who saved the costs of marriage by working in selling vegetables. Many years after they graduated from college, they no longer had any desire to work in the field of engineering, and their ambitions changed towards creating a project that would generate better revenues and provide job opportunities. For a number of young men and women.

Like Manal and her husband, many young Yemenis aspire to the existence of an official policy that provides small projects with sustainability, improves the environment for emergence and development, and protection from attacks and intrusions committed by parties outside the law, or from market fluctuations due to local and international political crises or natural disasters.

The results of a survey conducted by a local institution revealed that 36 percent of the population agree that small projects have a role in development and economic support, and that small projects contribute to combating poverty and unemployment.

In the survey, which targeted 70 percent of males and 30 percent of females, from different age groups and various Yemeni governorates, opinions showed that the most prominent solutions that will contribute to the spread of small projects are soft loans, investment encouragement, and rehabilitation and training.

Government efforts with Saudi support

The difficulties experienced by small business owners include high rents, economic deterioration, the weak role of the concerned authorities, and the lack of financing.

The Yemeni government seeks to enhance sustainable livelihoods, create job opportunities, improve income, address the weak performance of markets that concern small farmers and the poor, reveal the reasons for this weakness, and target products with the greatest potential to generate better livelihoods and achieve maximum returns and income for small producers, with Saudi support and financing.

In this context, the Steering Committee for the Market Access Readiness Program Project in the Main Economic Trade Sectors, headed by the Minister of Planning and International Cooperation, Waed Badhib, and the Minister of Agriculture, Irrigation, and Fisheries, Salem Al-Soqatri, discussed the plans and objectives of the project, which costs two million dollars, with funding from the Saudi Development and Reconstruction Program for Yemen and the Islamic Bank. For development.

The project includes interventions in value chains to improve access to markets, business consultations, capacity building and technical support provided to small and micro enterprises, establishing an e-commerce platform that connects companies in Yemen with merchants abroad, and monitoring access to goals and implementation of expected outputs within the time frame.

During the meeting, in which the Assistant General Supervisor of the Saudi Program for the Development and Reconstruction of Yemen, Hassan Al-Attas, the representative of the Islamic Development Bank, Khaled Ahmed, the Director of the Small and Small Enterprises Development Agency in Aden, Rana Anwar, and the project manager, Maher Khan, participated; Emphasizing the importance of the project in supporting increased productivity and exports of exportable cash crops such as honey, coffee, and onions.

Minister Badib praised the continued support provided by Saudi Arabia and the Saudi Program for the Development and Reconstruction of Yemen in all fields, which includes supporting development projects in the amount of $400 million, supporting the state’s general budget in the amount of one billion and 200 million dollars, and supporting the Islamic Development Bank, the main partner of Yemen for more than four decades. In the areas of infrastructure projects, human development, agriculture and fish sectors, and the efforts of the Small and Micro Enterprise Development Agency implementing the market access readiness project.

For his part, Minister Salem Al-Soqatri noted the importance of the project in contributing to supporting increased productivity and exports of exportable cash crops such as honey, coffee, and onions, calling for close coordination with the Ministries of Agriculture, Irrigation, and Fisheries during the implementation of the project phases, while the Saudi Program Assistant Supervisor, Hassan Al-Attas, confirmed that the project Market access readiness is one of the model economic empowerment projects.

Demands for protection and rehabilitation

Mustafa Al-Zariqi, who ran a sewing and ready-made clothing factory, complains of the inability of small projects to be sustainable due to the war and its effects on various levels and aspects. On the one hand, there is no possibility for the owners of these projects to coexist with the work of illegal levies and royalties or to confront attacks on them.

On the other hand, in his interview with Asharq Al-Awsat, Al-Zuraiqi points out the decline in motivation and the fears of owners of small projects and capital about turmoil, fluctuations and sudden decisions, in addition to the bankruptcy of a large number of large commercial companies or the transfer of their activity centers outside the country affects the owners of projects in many ways. Small, and reduces their options and opportunities.

The practices of illegal collections, royalties, and imposition of fines imposed by the Houthi group led to the closure of the factory and the dismissal of its workers, who numbered more than 50 individuals.

The World Bank recently expected the real GDP in Yemen to decline by 0.5 percent during the current year after its recovery by 1.5 percent last year, citing a number of negative economic events that affected Yemen, such as the cessation of oil exports due to the hostilities of the Houthi group, and price fluctuations. The local currency, higher inflation, and increased hostile activities on the private sector.

In an interview with Asharq Al-Awsat, economic expert Adel Al-Sami called for official authorities to adopt programs to assist and monitor the emergence of small projects, for fear that repeated failure would lead to the spread of despair and frustration. He stressed the need to provide support through assistance in careful feasibility studies and long-term marketing plans. Providing intensive and free training courses in these fields.

Al-Sama’i also calls on the private sector to provide the necessary and possible assistance and cooperation with small project owners because these projects are a tributary to the national economy in general, and a contributing factor in the success of the financial and investment environment, and because these projects represent an important mediation between the consumer and the producer.

According to his opinion; Small projects save large companies a lot of time and money, boost production, increase marketing rates, address their main problems, and provide production and marketing flexibility.