Development and the role of the private sector in fighting against poverty

The MDG approved by UN General Meeting in September 2000 are proposing a framework that would allow enterprises, civil society and public authorities to join efforts in order to tackle the most urgent issues in matters of development.

The conference of Monterrey on the financing of development and its follow-up conference of Doha, as well as the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, have confirmed this approach: the private sector plays well and truly a central part in the development process of the countries in terms of growth, employment, commercial integration and generation and distribution of income.

In Africa, perhaps more than elsewhere, the socio-cultural function of the micro-enterprise is preponderant in national economies. As a matter of fact most of the population is working in the informal sector and more than 90% of the enterprises are micro-enterprises.
Today these two sectors contribute in average to more than 70% of the formation of the African national GDP and underlie the organisation of most social networks.

The accompaniment and funding of such enterprises will allow, professionalise and officialise the initiatives on which the economic cohesion of the African society mainly rests.

One of the first tasks to be achieved to help the enterprises playing fully their part in such partnership with the civil society and public powers is undoubtedly to help them acceding to the funding sources so that they can expand.