YES! Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller has given the nation something to shout about. In her recent budget presentation she spoke of a programme being launched by the government which, although it got very little if any press, ranks among the most important policy announcements in the last 20 years.

The prime minister announced that the government would seek to increase the number of micro-enterprises by establishing business incubators all across Jamaica. Not only that: $120 million has been allocated to test the concept in four pilot communities prior to roll-out islandwide. Minister Phillip Paulwell, whose ministry will be the executing agency, quietly and without fanfare, convened a meeting of stakeholders in the micro- and small-enterprise sectors to present the project document and begin the planning.

Recognising the tendency for people to sleep through budget presentations, it is important that every Jamaican be awakened to the possibilities arising from this bold initiative. Business incubators are not common features of the Jamaican economy and so require some explaining, which is the purpose of this week's column.

The business incubator is a tried-and-proven concept for starting and sustaining micro-enterprises in depressed areas. The mortality (death) rate of these businesses can be as high as 75 per cent in the first nine months. They die because the owner lacks capital, management knowledge, market access, accounting skills and the like.

Just as with a premature baby, the incubator provides the fledgling micro-enterprise with the life-sustaining inputs necessary for survival and growth, business incubators typically offer affordable rental, shared services like bulk buying, help with marketing, technical assistance such as writing business plans and bank proposals, and accounting.

The concept of using business incubators to revive economically depressed urban areas originated in Batavia, New York, in 1959. The idea has since spread across America and the world. The Technology Innovation Centre at UTech is the only recognised business incubator in the English-speaking Caribbean. There is every reason to believe that the concept can be successfully transferred to depressed areas such as inner-city communities, to empower the socially and economically excluded masses.

This pragmatic step by the Jamaican government is consistent with the vision of Luis Alberto Moreno, president of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). Under his leadership, the IDB is repositioning to address the vexing issue of continued exclusion of a large number of people in Latin America and the Caribbean from the prosperity brought on by globalisation. One month ago, the IDB staged its Opportunity for the Majority Regional Conference right here in Jamaica. Country Manager Gerald Johnson and his local team, along with the team out of the Washington office, are to be congratulated for creating an opportunity for individuals and their respective organisations involved with "empowering the bottom of the pyramid", to network and share their experiences.

Agency for Inner-city Renewal (AIR) is one of the non-government organisations which were invited to make a presentation at the conference. Based in the inner-city community of Trench Town, AIR is partnering with institutions such as the National Housing Trust through the Inner-city Housing Project and the University of Technology through the Technology Innovation Centre, to establish a business incubator at the community level. The results attained thus far in fostering micro-enterprise development suggest that Mrs Simpson Miller and her government are on to something with the potential to revolutionise the economy and eliminate poverty; thus giving practical expression to Mr Moreno's vision.

Let's face it, big business is important but micro- and small enterprises are vital to economic advancement, particularly in a country such as Jamaica where the number of self-employed or own account workers is expanding in an exploding underground (informal) economy. One dimension of the problem in Jamaica is the tendency for public and private capital to be invested in people who are already rich in pocket but poor in ideas, instead of in people (the majority) who may be poor in pocket but are rich in ideas.

In local politics, it has long been suspected that changing the "trickle-down" economic paradigm supported by her predecessors is where the prime minister's heart is. If the announcement in her budget presentation is an indication that the outmoded development pyramid is to be inverted (turned on its head), it is something worth shouting about.
YES!

This article was first published in JamaicaObserver.com and is republished here with permission.