Fair work offers a path out of poverty for billions of people around the globe. 3B Impact has worked with Building Markets on their strategy review to sharpen their focus on small business leaders from economically vulnerable communities. CEO Radha Rajkotia explains how supporting these business leaders is key to economic growth, and why private sector growth and profit must be inclusive and sustainable.
For most of us, wherever we live, work offers the clearest path towards autonomy and for planning a future for ourselves. Quality jobs are at the heart of sustainable development, giving people “the means to lift themselves out of poverty, which in turn helps make countries more stable economically and socially” (World Bank). Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 8, Decent Work and Economic Growth calls for “sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all.” Meanwhile, SDG 10, Reduced Inequalities, recognises that “too much of the world’s wealth is held by a very small group of people.”
The World Trade Organization estimates that small businesses represent 90% of all companies in the world and provide 70% of all jobs. However, these businesses are often overlooked by major buyers and procurers, stifling their potential. SMEs in marginalised or low-income communities are also more sensitive to shocks such as economic downturns, climate change and pandemics, meaning that the jobs they provide are vulnerable too.
Building Markets is a global charity with the mission to tackle this challenge. Founded in 2004, it connects small businesses to larger firms looking to procure local goods and services via its digital marketplace. It finds and validates SMEs, provides them with access to working capital, procurement opportunities and training, and supplies buyers and financial providers with the data they need to confidently engage with them.
Acting at the intersection of the private, development and public sectors, their model has proved highly effective. Building Markets has assisted small firms to win US$1.4 billion in contracts and has helped to create 75,000 full-time equivalent jobs and counting. Achieving social change through local economic growth is the ultimate goal.
The Building Markets model – of upskilling and supporting small businesses to help them win larger contracts and building their resilience to deliver them – addresses the root causes of economic exclusion and provides sustainable routes out of poverty. All Building Markets programmes are led by team members who are from the markets in which they work.
For large businesses, it’s a clear route to a diversified, localised supply chain. For small businesses, it creates tangible, long-term, local growth and opportunity.
The organisation is currently supporting ethnically Turkish and Syrian-led businesses to recover after last year’s devastating earthquakes. It ran a business continuity bootcamp with hundreds of small business owners, helping them restructure their business plans post-quake.
Building Markets has also provided cash grants of $6,000 to 30 businesses, which allowed most of those companies to return to pre-earthquake staffing levels and to grow their revenue. Building Market’s Gaziantep office was adapted into a co-working space, to enable enterprises that had lost their offices to stay in business.
3B Impact recently collaborated with Building Markets to rework their theory of change and develop a new strategy which focuses on their priority group of minority communities. We helped them articulate the problems they are trying to solve and their root causes, to ensure that their activities and goals are optimised to deliver the outcomes and impact they are working towards.
As a result of our work, Building Markets has published its revised global strategy, which can be read here.
Through our work, it was clear that Building Markets is part of a global shift towards sustainable support for vulnerable communities via localisation and private sector-driven solutions. We’re excited to be working alongside them.
To learn more about Building Markets – and to hear the music currently inspiring Radha! – tune in to her Sound of Change episode with us here. Building Market’s website is here, and you can support their Crisis Relief Recovery Fund here.
For most of us, wherever we live, work offers the clearest path towards autonomy and for planning a future for ourselves. Quality jobs are at the heart of sustainable development, giving people “the means to lift themselves out of poverty, which in turn helps make countries more stable economically and socially” (World Bank). Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 8, Decent Work and Economic Growth calls for “sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all.” Meanwhile, SDG 10, Reduced Inequalities, recognises that “too much of the world’s wealth is held by a very small group of people.”
The World Trade Organization estimates that small businesses represent 90% of all companies in the world and provide 70% of all jobs. However, these businesses are often overlooked by major buyers and procurers, stifling their potential. SMEs in marginalised or low-income communities are also more sensitive to shocks such as economic downturns, climate change and pandemics, meaning that the jobs they provide are vulnerable too.
Building Markets is a global charity with the mission to tackle this challenge. Founded in 2004, it connects small businesses to larger firms looking to procure local goods and services via its digital marketplace. It finds and validates SMEs, provides them with access to working capital, procurement opportunities and training, and supplies buyers and financial providers with the data they need to confidently engage with them.
Acting at the intersection of the private, development and public sectors, their model has proved highly effective. Building Markets has assisted small firms to win US$1.4 billion in contracts and has helped to create 75,000 full-time equivalent jobs and counting. Achieving social change through local economic growth is the ultimate goal.
The Building Markets model – of upskilling and supporting small businesses to help them win larger contracts and building their resilience to deliver them – addresses the root causes of economic exclusion and provides sustainable routes out of poverty. All Building Markets programmes are led by team members who are from the markets in which they work.
For large businesses, it’s a clear route to a diversified, localised supply chain. For small businesses, it creates tangible, long-term, local growth and opportunity.
“The role of small business is about creating better futures and more economic stability” Building Markets CEO, Radha RajkotiaAs the daughter of an immigrant community, Building Market’s strategy “appeals to both my head and my heart,” Radha notes. The potential for small-scale enterprise to elevate communities has been known to her since childhood. “The immigrant community I grew up in relied on import-export…my aunties and uncles were all small business owners and entrepreneurs. It’s the people and families behind [these businesses] that drive me towards this work.”
The organisation is currently supporting ethnically Turkish and Syrian-led businesses to recover after last year’s devastating earthquakes. It ran a business continuity bootcamp with hundreds of small business owners, helping them restructure their business plans post-quake.
Building Markets has also provided cash grants of $6,000 to 30 businesses, which allowed most of those companies to return to pre-earthquake staffing levels and to grow their revenue. Building Market’s Gaziantep office was adapted into a co-working space, to enable enterprises that had lost their offices to stay in business.
3B Impact recently collaborated with Building Markets to rework their theory of change and develop a new strategy which focuses on their priority group of minority communities. We helped them articulate the problems they are trying to solve and their root causes, to ensure that their activities and goals are optimised to deliver the outcomes and impact they are working towards.
As a result of our work, Building Markets has published its revised global strategy, which can be read here.
Through our work, it was clear that Building Markets is part of a global shift towards sustainable support for vulnerable communities via localisation and private sector-driven solutions. We’re excited to be working alongside them.
To learn more about Building Markets – and to hear the music currently inspiring Radha! – tune in to her Sound of Change episode with us here. Building Market’s website is here, and you can support their Crisis Relief Recovery Fund here.
