The Road to the SDGs

PURPOSE X The BRAVE Programme was designed in 2016 by ICD in partnership with IsDB. The BRAVE Women Programme grew out of this initiative to address the specific needs of women. X Both Programmes invest in business resilience and business continuity initiatives within an integrated framework to help enterprises manage risk against the impact of ongoing conflict and develop crisis mitigation strategies. X The aim of the BRAVE Programme is to enhance private sector resilience in Yemen as an engine of sustainable growth, focusing on MSMEs in pro-poor/ value-adding sectors such as agribusiness, fisheries, healthcare and textiles. Partners have worked in close consultation with the Yemini Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation, the Small and Micro Enterprise Promotion Service (SMEPS), an affiliate agency of the Social Fund for Development, and three leading local FIs. X The aim of the BRAVE Women Programme is to address the special challenges faced by women-led small and medium-sized enterprises in the developing world, which are often unable to obtain the financial services they need to start and run businesses. METHOD X The BRAVE Programme consists of three components: – Providing business resilience capacity building – Providing business recovery support to selected firms with a matching-grant scheme, to be invested primarily in capital goods needed by the business – Strengthening value-chain resilience for target sectors and help leading firms adjust, upgrade or enhance their business models for the new market structure, through a tailored matching- grant scheme. X The first phase of the programme (2017–2018) provided Yemeni firms with much-needed business continuity training to respond to the challenges facing the private sector. Selected firms also benefited from the matching-grant scheme, which was deployed in coordination with local banks. T he aim of IsDB’s programme “Business Resilience Assistance for Value-Adding Enterprises” (BRAVE) and BRAVE Women Programme is to strengthen the private sector as an engine of sustainable growth despite ongoing conflict Enhancing private sector resilience through the BRAVE Programme The BRAVE Programme and BRAVE Women Programme have helped to bring jobs and stability to communities at risk and cemented the important role of the private sector in fragile and conflict- afflicted countries [ 100 ] SDGs