OVER the past four years or so, the Centre for Local Business Development has been helping hundreds of Guyanese-owned businesses in training, coaching, and mentorship to have more access to opportunities in the Oil and Gas sector.

But the centre has gone even further to design the Accelerate-Her Women Entrepreneurship Programme to help female-owned businesses build their overall capacity, so that they can put themselves in line to eventually benefit from oil and gas.

Explaining why this particular programme was designed, Director of the Centre Natasha Gaskin-Peters told Pepperpot Magazine: “We wanted to reach out to the female-owned businesses because we recognised that their participation in oil and gas is very low. We wanted to ensure that we build their capacity to support the broader economy.”

The project, which started in September, took in 35 businesses, but 16 were selected to move on to the next phase of training. It focused not only on oil and gas, but also on broader sectors so that women in tourism, agro-processing, construction, and hospitality could benefit. “Our support is not only to the oil and gas industry because that industry has a lot of spill- off impact into other sectors, so we support local Guyanese businesses in general,” Gaskin-Peters pointed out.

The women who graduated last week Saturday took courses in digital marketing, financial management, human resource management, among others, and had access to coaches and mentors who worked with them individually.

The centre also just completed its HSSE Management System Awards ceremony, celebrating 25 local companies that have completed the programme this year. “They have built their health and safety systems, now have manuals in place and are implementing health and safety in their working environment. We’re focusing on the importance of people; workers who are our most valuable asset and we need to ensure that they are always safe,” Gaskin-Peters said.

Opened in 2017, the centre has trained over 1,800 businesses in Guyana that support the oil and gas industry and the broader economy. “That’s the culture we’ve started to build among the local businesses because it is very crucial in terms of them winning opportunities.”

Commenting on why the centre focuses on training, she shared how even when businesses look huge and flourishing, they may not be promoting the quality products and services needed. “The oil and gas industry is new and they need to build quality management systems and other technical capabilities.”

For next year, the centre will launch a Project Management Mentorship Programme that will seek to help businesses that still have problems delivering a product or service on time and in an efficient manner. “We need to help them to properly manage those projects. Again, it’s going to be about training. We don’t train alone, but we mentor and coach because this is more effective for the businesses,” Gaskin-Peters stated.

The centre has also launched a costing course because businesses have been having challenges with pricing.

Noting that Guyana is one of the “most compelling places” to be doing business today, the centre was established to assist Guyanese companies to better understand and access opportunities, primarily in the oil and gas sector, by improving their overall competitiveness.

“The centre is uniquely positioned to grasp the evolution of Guyana’s marketplace and to promote inclusive growth,” it said on its website, centreguyana.com.

“Since its inception, the centre continues to evolve to meet the needs of Guyanese businesses and the oil and gas sector. It responds to market trends by broadening its reach and diversifying its products and services. With decades of transformative growth ahead, the centre is well positioned as the nexus of Guyanese and international business,” it continued.

To benefit from the training and other opportunities that the centre provides, a business simply needs to be legally registered with the Deeds Registry, and useful information on how to access training opportunities can be found on the centre’s website.