UN Volunteers use Internet to boost business in Ecuador - December 2002

Monday, 9 December 2002: United Nations Volunteers (UNV) are harnessing the Internet to help start new businesses, ranging from canning and freezing fish to artisans joining forces to market wooden crafts, in a new initiative in Esmeraldas Province in north-west Ecuador.

The project, in cooperation with UNDP, is expanding to eight more provinces through alliances with local partners. It aims to promote business start-ups and local development to create jobs and reduce poverty. There are more than 2,000 fishing families in Esmeraldas selling on the local market at low prices, for example, and the project is helping them find other markets.

The initiative is vital to the province's economic, social and cultural development, said Ernesto Estupiñan, Mayor of Esmeraldas, the provincial capital. "It will help create a business culture in the province," he said.

Roxana Benites, a national UN Volunteer, runs the new Business Development Agency in Esmeraldas, set up in cooperation with the Esmeraldas Development Corporation. She helps speed business start-ups, including finding funds to cover initial costs. One approach is to pool the resources of several businesses to secure loans.

Ms. Benites also cooperates with universities and technology centres in developing business plans and other local business activities.

Her agency -- and the ones planned in other provinces -- will be a "one-stop office" where entrepreneurs can find all services necessary to set up or expand a business. Each agency will have an IT centre linking entrepreneurs via the Internet to information on local and regional markets, essential for doing business in the Free Trade Zone of the Americas and the global economy.

New companies will be able to register online and have access to business directories, commercial data, online publicity and other e-commerce services. Agencies will also exchange lessons learned via the Internet.

UNDP Resident Representative Aase Smedler said the project is an innovative initiative that will help create jobs and promote human development at the local level. The project´s pilot office in the southern province of Loja provided services to more than 1,000 entrepreneurs in its first year, she noted.

Several international and national partners are participating in the initiative, including Ecuador´s Unit for Northern Development (UDENOR), the Ministry for External Commerce and Industrialization (MICIP), the National Council for Competitiveness (CNC), the World Bank and the Japan International Cooperation Agency.

Sven von der Ohe, UNV Coordinator in Ecuador, invited businesses in Esmeraldas to allow employees to work as corporate volunteers in their communities to support local development. He noted that three UN Volunteers are working with the municipality in a programme to strengthen local volunteer initiatives.

There are 47 UN Volunteers working in 13 provinces in Ecuador, about half of them national volunteers.

For more information please contact Carla Rossignoli, UNDP Ecuador, or Ana Gerez, UNDP Communications Office.

For more information about UNV's ICT volunteering activities, contact:
UNITeS