YEA concludes 'Sawtouna' public policy training

The rigorous training included a communication and public speaking component conducted by Better Business, a session by Dr. Yusuf Mansour (Envision Consulting) on "Building a research paper and writing it", as well as module on "How to market your ideas" presented by Tactix.

The students also attended a series of speaker sessions by several prominent Jordanians, including Mrs. Amal Fayez, a representative of legislative bureau at the Prime Ministry on "the fundamentals of legislating" and His Excellency Mr. Taher Al-Masri speaking candidly on "Jordan's political realities".

Staffers program aims to support parliamentarians in building their positions on issues pertaining to Entrepreneurship and the business environment, by supplying the necessary research through permanent staffers.

Sawtouna project is Jordan's first public policy advocacy effort, focused on improving the environment for Small/Medium Enterprises and Start-ups through legislative and structural reforms. "Sawtouna" strives to reduce the burdens associated to doing business in Jordan, and to make grassroots entrepreneurship commonplace in the Jordanian business environment. The project also aims to ultimately make entrepreneurship an accessible concept to all socio-economic strata.

"Sawtouna" was formed, and is overseen by, the Public Policy Advocacy Committee (PPAC) at the Young Entrepreneurs' Association (YEA). The project's priority issues are derived from the recommendations compiled during the Entrepreneurship Jordan Forum of 2004.

The projects' last major success was a commitment from his Excellency the Minister of Industry and Trade and the Companies' controller to reduce the minimum capital requirement for Limited Liability Companies from 30,000 JDs to between 1000 and 5000 JDs.