Islamic Corporation for the Development of the Private Sector (ICD)
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    • Islamic Development Bank (IsDB), Islamic Corporation for the Development of the Private Sector (ICD) and Small and Micro Enterprise Promotion Service (SMEPS) join hands to scale up business resilience support to Yemen under BRAVE Program
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Source: Islamic Corporation for the Development of the Private Sector (ICD) |

Islamic Development Bank (IsDB), Islamic Corporation for the Development of the Private Sector (ICD) and Small and Micro Enterprise Promotion Service (SMEPS) join hands to scale up business resilience support to Yemen under BRAVE Program

The Business Resilience Assistance for Value-adding Enterprises (BRAVE) aims to enhance the resilience of the Small and Medium Enterprise (SME)s in Yemen in vital sectors against the impacts of the ongoing conflict

ICD will expand its support to this innovative program providing technical oversight and resource mobilization for SMEPS and our partner banks in Yemen

JEDDAH, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, December 30, 2018/APO Group/ --

IDB Head Office witnessed today the signing ceremony of the implementation agreements for the scale up of BRAVE Program in Yemen. The Business Resilience Assistance for Value-adding Enterprises (BRAVE) aims to enhance the resilience of the SMEs in Yemen in vital sectors against the impacts of the ongoing conflict. The positive results of the first phase (2017-2018) included sustaining existing jobs, creating news ones and restoring trust links across supported the value chains and financial sector. This progress encouraged the development partners ISDB, ICD (www.ICD-ps.org) and SMEPS to lunch the second phase of BRAVE.

Dr. Mansur Muhtar, Vice President Sector Operations commended the progress made in BRAVE project  providing livelihood support to Yemen by unleashing private sector role in maintaining business resilience. Dr. Mansur Also highlighted the unique partnership model between the international donors, IsDB Group and the leading developmental and financial institutions of Yemen. Having raised USD 9 million of grants from the transition fund and another USD 32.24 million of grants from the Women Entrepreneurs Financing Initiative (We-FI), the BRAVE model is in line with the P5P program of changing IsDB Group into bank of developers for development.

Mr. Ayman Sejiny, the CEO of ICD, said that ICD is honored to lead the IsDB Group efforts in business resilience support in fragile contexts. He further stated that “ICD will expand its support to this innovative program providing technical oversight and resource mobilization for SMEPS and our partner banks in Yemen. We are also working with our partners to adapt and adopt the BRAVE model to other comparable contexts where SMEs are in need for business resilience support to cope with business environment challenges. These interventions are also leveraging the established network partner banks of ICD in our member countries”.

Mr. Wesam Qaid, Executive Director of Small Mediun Enterprise Promotion Services (SMEPS), expressed his appreciation of how the partnership with IsDB and ICD is evolving rapidly while accelerating SMEPS development impact in the SME sector in Yemen. According to Mr. Wesam: “ the project has helped support SMEs to sustain more than 15000 jobs and create around 1000  additional direct jobs in the vital sectors of Health, Agribusiness, Food processing and Fisheries as a result of immediate improvement in firms’ performance. More impact is expected in the upcoming scaling of the project across gender and value chain dimensions under the new wave of funding facilitated from IsDB Group.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Islamic Corporation for the Development of the Private Sector (ICD).

About IsDB:
The Islamic Development Bank is a multilateral development bank (MDB), working to improve the lives of those they serve by promoting social and economic development in Muslim countries and communities worldwide, delivering impact at scale.

IsDB provide the infrastructure to enable people to lead better lives and achieve their full potential.

They bring together 57 member countries across four continents - touching the lives of 1 in 5 of the world’s population.

IsDB is one of the world’s most active MDBs, and global leaders in Islamic Finance, with an AAA rating, and operating assets of more than USD 16 billion and subscribed capital of USD 70 billion.

IsDB is a global institution, headquartered in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, with major hubs in Morocco, Malaysia, Kazakhstan and Senegal, and gateway offices in Egypt, Turkey, Indonesia, Bangladesh and Nigeria.

IsDB foster collaboration between member nations in a uniquely non-political environment, as they focus on the betterment of humanity.

About SMEPS:
The Small and Micro Enterprise Promotion Service (SMEPS) was first established in Yemen in 2005 and it is subsidiary of the Social Fund for Development in Yemen (SFD). SMEPS is working in the economic development specialized in the private sector development through three main components:
• The Value Chain Development
• The Business Development Services
• The Entrepreneurship Enhancements

SMEPS exists to create more jobs, expanding their beneficiaries and focuses mainly on developmental projects and linking them to humanitarian work. It aims to achieve its goals by pursuing “creative strategies for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) of diversity and growth through the market-oriented approach”. In keeping with this approach, SMEPS interventions seek to build and facilitate the economic and technical capacities of market-driven private-sector parties including the MSMEs themselves, rather than acting as a significant direct service-provider to MSMEs.

In conflict, bridging development and humanitarian projects together is the most useful and sustainable approach that Yemen needs. SMEPS is pushing for this nexus and it is promoting it with the local and international partners as well. We advocate to the concept of working in development and humanitarian projects hand in hand, and it has proved to be effectively working on the ground.  As an example, to support food security SMEPS strives to achieve SDG 2.3, 2.4

About the Islamic Corporation for the Development of the Private Sector:
ICD (www.ICD-ps.org) is a multilateral organization and a member of the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) Group. The mandate of ICD is to support economic development and promote the development of the private sector in its member countries through providing financing facilities and/or investments which are in accordance with the principles of Shari’ah. ICD also provides advice to governments and private organizations to encourage the establishment, expansion and modernization of private enterprises. ICD is rated AA/F1+ by Fitch and Aa3/P1 by Moody’s. For more information visit www.ICD-ps.org