Silatech

Silatech (Arabic:صلتك) is a socially-minded initiative based in Qatar, spearheaded by the wife of the former Emir of Qatar Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser Al Missned, with Tarik Yousef as the current CEO. Silatech means "your connection" in Arabic.^[1] The initiative seeks to create jobs and economic opportunities for young people in the Arab world,^[2] targeting 18 - 30 year olds.^[3] Between 2008 and January 2012, Silatech claims to have helped 25,000 young Arabs get jobs.^[4] The initiative’s model involves building partnerships with governments, private companies and NGOs. Silatech is supported by the United Nations, the International Labor Organization, and the World Bank.

History

Silatech was launched at the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations Forum in January 2008 by Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser Al Missned, initially targeting six pilot countries: Bahrain, Morocco, Qatar, Syria, Tunisia, and Yemen.^[5] The initiative’s $100 million seed capital was donated from the personal funds of Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser Al Missned and the former emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani.^[6] Programmatic operations began in 2009.^[7]

Founding Partners

Founding partners of Silatech include Cisco,^[8] Gallup,^[9] and ImagineNations.^[10]

Mission

Silatech seeks to harness the ‘youth bulge’ in the Arab world and tackle youth unemployment - which is as high as 35% in some Arab countries - by promoting the economic empowerment of Arab youth.^[5] Silatech’s work is based on the premise that many young Arabs would like to open their own businesses, but are prevented from doing so by policy, financing and other barriers. A finding highlighted by Silatech from a report conducted in partnership with Gallup, is that “24 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds in the Arab world plan to start their own business within the next 12 months. That’s compared with 4 percent of Americans the same age, and 4 percent of Europeans the same age.”^[11] Silatech therefore seeks to promote large-scale job creation, entrepreneurship, and access to capital and markets for young people, by working to change policy, access, and mindsets.^[12]

Context

Silatech can be seen as part of a broader trend of Gulf Arab countries providing aid to other countries, and as part of Qatar's emergence as a relatively new Arab donor.^[13] Saudi Arabia has been the largest overseas development assistance donor in the last 40 years.^[14][15] Organizations such as the Saudi Fund for Development, the AGFUND, the Islamic Development Bank, the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development, and the Kuwait Fund, are active in providing funding for regional development.^[16] The AGFUND has notably established microfinance institutions: the National Bank for Small Projects Financing in Jordan, Al-Amal Microfinance Bank in Yemen, Ibda Microfinance Bank in Syria, Ibda Microfinance Establishment in Egypt and Ibda Microfinance Bank in Bahrain.^[17] More than 80% of Arab aid flows to other Arab countries, namely Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Yemen, Sudan, Bahrain, Lebanon, Oman.^[14] Arab aid is often not transparent, with two key barriers to transparency identified: "insufficient data supplied by national aid organizations and additional unreported transfers by Arab governments which bypass the bilateral organizations."^[18]

Silatech's mission of tackling youth unemployment reflects the focus on these issues from international organizations and Arab policy makers. Since 2011, there has been even greater concern and attention regionally and internationally as youth unemployment has been seen as a large factor in bringing about the revolutions known as the Arab Spring. "The Arab region faces no greater challenge than employment generation," states a World Bank report.^[19] 75 million jobs in the region will have to be created by 2020 in order to maintain employment at current levels, according to the World Economic Forum.^[20]

Activities

As of March 2014, Silatech was active in 13 countries,^[21] running projects with partners in the areas of microfinance, career advice and employability, small and medium enterprises (SME) development, civic engagement, and research and policy advocacy.^[22]

Employability

One of Silatech’s first partnerships was with Cisco to create a technology platform for ICT education and youth interaction with prospective employers.^[5] Together with Microsoft, Silatech has developed Ta3meel, a set of online training programs and curricula and an online portal that provides skills and employer connections, with the aim of reaching two million young people.^[23] An Arabic MOOC (massive open online course) was developed with ALISON, and made available on the Ta3meel employability platform in June 2013.^[24]

Meanwhile another initiative, Tamheed, in collaboration with Mindmill, has created an online career guidance platform with psychometric testing, which has been used by young people in Qatar, Morocco, Palestine, Syria, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).^[25]

Partnering with Tunisiana, the main private telecommunications operator in Tunisia, Silatech launched e-mobile employment platform MobiWorks in 2013, reaching 300,000 Tunisians in less than a month, and offering mobile learning for entrepreneurship, career guidance and financial literacy.^[26]

Offline, Silatech has supported career counseling, for instance, partnering with the International Youth Foundation in 2012 to provide four days of career guidance training in the West Bank for participants from nine NGOs, universities and colleges in Palestine.^[27] Collaborating with Pearson Education’s Edexcel brand, Silatech developed an accredited course and new qualification (Silaqual) for construction industry training in Yemen.^[28] The project started in 2009 and at least 1024 construction workers were trained in 2010.^[28]

Financial inclusion

The Consultative Group to Assist the Poor and Silatech hosted a workshop in Rabat on March 12–13, 2013, on youth financial inclusion in the region.^[29]

In June 2013, Silatech launched a youth savings initiative in Morocco with Al Barid Bank and GIZ called ‘Tawfir al-Ghad’ (Saving for Tomorrow), with the aim of providing saving accounts and financial literacy training to 30,000 young people.^[30] This project was the expansion of a youth micro-savings pilot with Al Amal Microfinance Bank in Yemen, where 11,000 young people opened savings accounts for the first time between 2010 and 2013.^[31] The micro-savings project has also expanded to Egypt.

Microfinance

In August 2011, Silatech signed a Memorandum of Understanding to create a fund to support small and medium-sized enterprises, investing $10 million in the fund, with the General Authority for Investment in Egypt.^[32] Silatech and UNWRA announced ‘Mubaderati’ (Initiatives) in February 2012, providing a select group of entrepreneurs with financing to help begin their businesses.^[33] Silatech guarantees part of the loan, which reduces the risk for UNWRA and young Palestinian borrowers, thereby freeing up millions of dollars worth of additional loans from UNWRA.^[34] A partnership with Attawfiq Microfinance in 2012 introduced 'Boudour' (Seed), the first loan product specifically for youths in Morocco, which over 7,000 entrepreneurs had received by June 2013.^[30]

In 2012, Silatech and micro-lending platform Kiva partnered to create ‘Kiva Arab Youth,’ allowing people to make online loans of at least $25 to help fund microentrepreneurs under 30.^[35] Silatech matches loans made by the community - initially, this was up to $175,000,^[36] but has since been raised to $375,000.^[37] Through the Kiva Arab Youth project, $3 million was raised for 2,500 young people by April 2013.^[38]

In April 2013, Silatech partnered with Yomken, a small Egypt-based crowdfunding platform, to help grow and scale Yomken regionally, and help support micro entrepreneurs in creating a prototype.^[38] In June 2013, Silatech announced it would collaborate with collaborate with international payments firm Dahabshiil and the American Red Cross to promote crowdfunding in Somalia using remittance payments.^[39]

In September 2013, Grameen-Jameel (a joint venture with the Grameen Foundation) partnered with Silatech to enable new access to microfinance for young people in countries such as Libya.^[40]

By 2012, Silatech had raised $35 million of co-funding for microfinance initiatives, had 12 financial institution partners in five countries, and had helped start or grow 15,000 youth-run businesses, making it the largest supporter of youth microfinance services in the Arab region.^[41][42][43]

SME investment

Silatech launched SILA, a network of angel investors to invest in early-stage businesses in Qatar, in partnership with Qatar Development Bank, Wamda, Oasis500, and the MIT Enterprise Forum in October 2012.^[44]

Competitions

Winners of the third annual Al Fikra Business Plan Competition were announced in April 2013, with winners receiving unspecified cash prizes, incubation, professional development, and managerial and technical advice from Enterprise Qatar.^[45] The Al Fikra Business Plan Competition is managed by Enterprise Qatar, with Silatech and the SILA early-stage investment network as co-organizers.^[45] Silatech also supported the regional MIT Enterprise Forum Arab Business Plan competition held in April 2013.^[46]

In 2014, Silatech held the first Arab Mobile App Challenge in partnership with the Applied Innovation Institute and Ooredoo.^[47] First, workshops were held in Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, and the UAE in late 2013, followed by competitions in these countries in January 2014, with the top three entries from each country sent to the finals in Doha.^[48] The winners who were announced on February 2, 2014^[49] earned prizes of $50,000, $30,000 and $20,000, and one team from each country was selected to compete at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.^[48]

Conferences

Silatech has been active in organising conferences at national and regional levels. On January 11–12, 2012, Silatech brought 300 Libyan youth and government officials together in Benghazi to discuss youth empowerment, which resulted in the creation of the National Youth Leadership Council.^[50] On February 16–18, 2013, Silatech organized the Arab Youth and Entrepreneurship Conference in Qatar with The Arab Urban Development Institute and in partnership with the World Bank.^[51] The conference brought 300 people together to discuss the challenges facing young entrepreneurs, and the ways in which local governments, NGOs and the private sector could come together to support young entrepreneurs.^[51] Silatech organized a conference on October 16–17, 2013 at UC Berkeley’s Fung Institute to bring figures from the Arab world together with scholars, venture capitalists, and Silicon Valley innovators.^[52] Silatech has also supported Global Entrepreneurship Week; in Qatar in November 2013,^[53] and the first ever such event in Libya also held in November 2013.^[54]

Research

In 2008, a collaboration between Silatech, FTSE Group, and the Qatar Financial Markets Authority (QFMA) created a new index project, supporting individual exchanges across the Arab World to launch small and medium enterprises markets.^[55] Joining with the Wolfensohn Center for Development at the Brookings Institution, the Dubai School of Government, and the Issam Fares Institute at the American University of Beirut, Silatech launched ‘Taqeem’ in June 2009, a project to assess the impact of current policy and investment in the areas of employment and entrepreneurship, and to identify, scale, and promote best practices.^[56]

Silatech collaborates with Gallup to investigate youth attitudes to employment and entrepreneurship across the region in the ‘Silatech Index.’^[57] Since 2008, twice-yearly reports have sought to measure and quantify youth opinions in three areas: job creation and availability, access to resources required to find jobs, and policies blocking their success.^[58]

In 2012, Silatech collaborated with the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor and Sanabel to survey regional microfinance institutions, identifying gaps in youth financial inclusion and seeking to use the information to improve policy.^[59]

Civic engagement

In January 2014, Silatech and Innovations in Civic Partnership launched a program allowing universities in Egypt, Morocco, Palestine, Tunisia, and Yemen to apply for grants assisting institutional change and improving civic engagement.^[60] In February 2014, Silatech and Innovations in Civic Partnership convened a forum in Amman, Jordan, for more than 40 university presidents and senior administrators to discuss integrating civic engagement into higher education.^[60]

Organizational governance

Rick Little was CEO of Silatech from its founding in 2008, until July 2011.^[61] Tarik Yousef subsequently took over as CEO of Silatech.^[62]

Silatech’s current board of trustee members are Martti Ahtisaari, David Bell, Rick Little, Hessa Al Jaber, Nemir Kirdar, Ahmad Mohamed Ali Al-Madani, and Mohammed Al Naimi, with Sheikha Mozah serving as chair.^[63]

In 2012, Cisco CEO John Chambers was also a board member.^[4] In 2011, Mary Robinson, Nabil Kuzbari and Khaled Bin Mohammed Al-Attiyah were board members (along with current board members Martti Ahtisaari, David Bell, and Rick Little), when Ameera al-Taweel joined the board in April 2011.^[64] In 2009, John Chambers and Wim Elfrink of Cisco and Ratan Tata were also board members.^[65]

Board meetings have been held in Tunis on January 17, 2012,^[4] and in Rabat on June 9, 2013.^[66] The extent to which the board of directors are involved in decision-making and the governance of Silatech is unclear.

Silatech’s criticisms of other initiatives

In a 2008 cable from the US embassy in Qatar, Silatech’s then-CEO Rick Little was quoted criticizing current programs targeting Arab youth unemployment (including USAID programs) as "only 'boutique' projects that have little lasting effect."^[67] The cable continues to say that "Little envisions Silatech to be much more effective in reaching unemployed youth in MENA and elsewhere."^[67]

Current CEO Tarik Yousef has broadly criticized Arab governments for not doing enough to help young entrepreneurs, thus the public sector remains a more attractive option for young Arabs.^[68] He has also found fault with financial institutions in the region, for what he sees as their willingness to lend for consumption, but not for business startups.^[68]

Criticisms of Silatech

The U.S. diplomatic mission in Qatar expressed concerns that other Arab governments may not see Silatech as separate from the Qatari government, even though Silatech staff claim the organization is just an NGO that happens to based in Qatar.^[67] A representative from Silatech is one of five members of the board of directors of the Qatar Development Fund appointed by royal decree, while the board's chairman is Khalid bin Mohammad Al Attiyah,^[69] who is currently the Minister of Foreign Affairs.^[70] Elsewhere, Silatech has been highlighted as a way for Qatar to wield soft power and "channel money into populist causes and present itself once more as a force for good in the region."^[71]

While the royal family were said to have started Silatech with $100 million of their own funds,^[6] this is difficult to fully ensure given the "blurred lines between the wealth of state figures and the state itself."^[72]

References

External links

• Silatech
• Kiva Arab Youth
• SILA Angel Investment Network
• Arab Mobile Challenge