Khabar Khair (Only Good News) – Abdul Jalil Al-Salami

     A new economic study recommended Yemen to Adopt Rwanda  model that transform from a deteriorated country reeling from poverty and ethnic dispute to a fast-developing economy, due to the policies and reforms it has pursued.

    Among the five least developed countries, Rwanda is the only economy that has achieved significant developments relating to establishing a new business and the process of doing business.

    Rwanda which was ranked the 139th country in the ease of doing business in 2009 (World Bank, 2008) emerged as the 29th country in 2019 (World Bank, 2018).

    The study ” ENTERPRISING IN YEMEN COMPARED WITH OTHER LEAST DEVELOPED COUNTRIES” stated that Adopting this model in the least developed countries would act as a roadmap that drives the economy towards achieving entrepreneurial change (as in the case of Rwanda)-.

    The study published by Journal of Advanced Research in Economics and Administrative Sciences concluded that is in need of adopting the dimensions of the entrepreneurial change which involve developing the human capital of the country, adopting development visions and strategies.

  The study concluded that Yemen, is in need of enabling competitive strategies , reforming the business environment and finally the cooperation with the international development partners; for the purpose of embracing the entrepreneurial change

the current conflict and political unrest have a big effect on the business process and development efforts and is acting as a severe deterrent factor. The status of lawlessness in the country has worsened the development efforts for undertaking business processes.

   For the last few years, Yemen has been located in the tail of countries in respect of doing business factors.

Yemen was ranked as the 98th country in term of ease of doing business in 2009 and dropped down to 187th country in the list among 190 countries during 2019 (World Bank, 2008; 2018).

   an entrepreneur is required to wait 40 days to process starting a business as against 14 days back in 2009.

     The fee payable was around 93% of per capita income in 2009, which during 2019rose to 118.8% of per capita income (World Bank, 2008; 2018)..

   Dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, accessing credit, registering property, protecting investors, and enforcing contracts have all worsened during the last ten years.

  Micro, small and medium enterprises in Yemen account for 97% of the business sectors, with 290,000 enterprises with less than 25 workers and employing around 600,000 workers in them.

  Small and smaller enterprises employ around 44.5% of the workforce, while medium enterprises employ 19.5% and 36% are employed by large enterprises (CSO, 2017).

In Yemen, political instability has been the major hindrance for enterprising and entrepreneurship activities (as identified by half of SMEs in the country); 24% of SMEs identified electricity as a major obstacle to enterprising..

  The SMEs sector in Yemen is exposed to a tremendous amount of challenges and obstacles coupled with the impact caused by the recent instability that the country is witnessing. The active conflict which is going on in Yemen has a significant influence on the enterprising activities and the development of entrepreneurship in the economy.

   This exerts lots of pressure on policymakers and international organizations to cooperate and create a conducive environment for small and medium enterprises to function and grow in the economy..

    They emphasized that developing strategies and structural reforms can and should be beneficial to achieve growth, provide economic welfare and entrepreneurial change in Yemen.