GEW Pakistan and United States Embassy shaped the policy to promote Entrepreneurship in Pakistan. It is to be signed by Pakistan top Entrepreneurs and Policymakers.
A wide panel of important economic actors gathered to propose concrete steps at Marriott hotel Islamabad to invigorate the entrepreneurship ecosystem. They brain stormed the constraints in creating and enabling environment for entrepreneurship growth in Pakistan, after which some key constraints were selected and their possible solutions were discussed to determine a way forward.
The discussion was moderated by Ms. Kanwal Bokhari, the Economic Growth Advisor of USAID. The panel members included Mr. Rashid Khan, Mr Hassan Raza, Mr. Razwan Rizvi, Mr. Imtiaz Rastgar, Dr. Shahina Wahi, Mr. Sardar Hayat, Mr. Faisal Mushtaq, Mr. Shahid Ansari, Ms. Inez, Mr. Malik Shehryar, Mr. Muhammad Farrukh, Mr. Adnan Shahid, Mr. Moeen Batley, Mr. Bilal Furrukh, Mr. Naveed Mirza, Mr. Amer Hashmi, Ms. Linda Lourie and Dr. Sohail Naqvi.
Education, lack of policies and lack of venture capitalist were
decided to be the three main constraints restricting the growth of entrepreneurship in Pakistan. Some of the possible solutions were to include the subject of entrepreneurship as a mandatory course in all educational institutes irrespective of the discipline of the student. Regarding policy making, it was said that all those policies should be revisited and amended that are in one way or the other restrict entrepreneurial activities. As per the venture capital, it was proposed that a mutual fund should be created, contributed by the industry and the government which should be then allotted to potential young entrepreneurs with brilliant business ideas.
This platform of discussion provided by GEW Pakistan proved to be of immense importance and potential for entrepreneurship growth and it was decided that the panelists will meet every three months on the same platform to take the discussion further and get the policies formulated in real time.
Sundas Liaqat 