Whilst there is no doubt about the scale of the socio-economic challenge in Guatemala, some characteristics demonstrate that there is hope and opportunity for small enterprise development and that the enabling environment is improving. There is an entrepreneurial spirit—how to catalyse that into sustained enterprise growth will require capacity building and investment. The question of how to make enterprise development inclusive for marginalized populations (indigenous groups, women, rural populations and youth) will also be a challenge.

 

Key findings

There are a number of strong organisations and resources in Guatemala. The local capacity exists as demonstrated by the number of credible incubators and accelerators in the country and experienced NGOs—it is a question of strengthening and developing that local capacity. There is also a delicate balance to be had in terms of strengthening urban enterprises vs. rural/agricultural enterprises and also ensuring that the women and indigenous populations have access to skill building and enterprise development.

More deliberate co-ordination is needed to ensure that there is no cannibalisation of clients across the organisations, and that there is diversity of services, offerings, as well as ways to access services across disbursed geographies. There also could be more coordination in terms of linking services, so that as businesses grow, there is a clear trajectory of offerings that SMEs can access as their needs evolve and change. Lastly, bringing local financial institutions into the conversation can only help in providing the financing vehicles needed for growth of the sector. 

Other resources

  • Mapping based on social network analysis was published by Swisscontact in 2020
  • Short study of Guatemala’s light manufacturing sector includes recommendations for enterprise development support. In Spanish.
  • ANDE's ecosystems mappings library contains other useful resources, indexed by region and country.

About Argidius’ mappings

We regularly commission SME ecosystems mappings in our target geographies. These studies are intended to give contextual overview and shed light on the challenges and opportunities for SME development and poverty alleviation. They include an inventory of service organisations and an analysis of the services landscape including areas of unfulfilled needs (gaps) Argidius use these maps to help identify organisations positioned to address these gaps.