GESI Subsidy for Small Businesses, Led by Women

Business Link Pacific’s (BLP) GESI subsidy support is available to small businesses, led by women, youth, indigenous peoples and marginalised groups in Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, PNG, Solomon Islands, Samoa, Tonga and Vanuatu. It is accessed through eligible BLP approved business advisors (BASPs). This document outlines the new guidelines for BLP GESI subsidies now available to businesses that meet the GESI criteria described below.

GESI Subsidy Background and Purpose

The BLP subsidy scheme is designed to stimulate the market for business advisory services (BAS) by working with both the demand from SMEs, who typically consider advisory services to be unaffordable, and the supply from service providers who may not currently target SME clients. While the BLP subsidy scheme has had very good uptake from women-led businesses, a Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI) review of the programme carried out in 2019, found that there were further opportunities for small businesses with 1 to 5 employees, led by women, youth and indigenous groups from vulnerable backgrounds, to access BLP subsidy support.

Small businesses, led by women, youth, indigenous peoples or other marginalized groups typically experience additional barriers to business growth due to a number of factors. These include, but are not limited to illiteracy, lack of access to training/education, lack of access to finance, poor business management skills, limited access to networks to help grow their businesses and other cultural factors that impede their mobility and opportunities for advancement. BLP’s GESI strategy focuses on further improving capacity and access to essential business advisory services for these groups.

The GESI Subsidy is designed to achieve the following goals: 

• Provide funding support to small businesses owned by women, youth, indigenous peoples or other marginalized groups that are looking for support and would otherwise not be able to access Business Advisory Services (BAS) without additional assistance.
• Create a mechanism through which BASPs’ awareness of GESI is increased such that they assessing and responding to GESI clients’ diverse and unique needs, potentially developing and providing different services or delivery methods to respond to the needs of people of different genders (especially women), ages, ability statuses, ethnicities, etc.

Projects supported through the GESI Subsidy:

• The provision of BAS is expected to be extended to groups of up to 10 entrepreneurs or small businesses, with between 1 and 5 employees, including the owner.
• The small businesses should be led by women, or youth, or indigenous people, or other marginalised groups, who haven’t accessed BLP subsidies previously, and would otherwise not benefit from BAS due to a variety of barriers, as described above.
• The services should identify and be tailored to fill the gaps these unique businesses have in areas of business advisory support e.g. business management and organisational capability; accounting and record-keeping; improved support to women in leadership; training on internal communications, marketing or customer service, etc. See the full list of BLP services here.

Subsidy Amount

• Up to 80% subsidy for projects with costs proportional to the size of the client business. The cost of projects will be assessed based on value for money, the scope of services being delivered and intended outcomes.

Eligible BASPs are invited to demonstrate GESI awareness, experience, and capacity by successfully completing BLP’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion competence, and becoming approved to provide this category of services or by providing examples of previous experience supporting the targeted communities.

Eligible Small Business Clients

Target small businesses with whom BASP applicants will be supporting through the GESi subsidy must meet
the following criteria:

• Led by women, or youth (18-30 years of age), or indigenous people (individuals who are identified as indigenous and have not previously benefited from a BLP subsidy), or individuals from other vulnerable groups.
• Should have at least one employee – i.e. the business owner – with plans to create opportunities for more employment or be able to show they have at least one other informal employee working for them as well (i.e. a family member at the least).
• Small businesses must:
  – be a business licence holder or be in the process of obtaining a licence
  – have been operational for at least 6 months, and
  – be able to demonstrate that they are an active business.
• Should be striving for business improvement and be able to articulate a plan forward; the plan does not need to be elaborate but should be deemed realistic.
• Should have an identified market for their product(s) and/or service(s) ideally articulated through their business plan.

Working with a BLP GESI Partner:

If a BLP approved BASP wants assistance to identify groups of small businesses for support through the GESI Subsidy, the BASP can choose to work with a BLP GESI partner, who can refer GESI eligible businesses to the BASP for support. BASPs can contact BLP at [email protected] to express their interest.

BLP GESI Partners are organisations that specifically support businesses owned by women, or youth ( 18-30 years of age), or indigenous people or other groups. GESI Partners can assist BASPs to identify suitable small businesses for assistance through the GESI subsidy (see criteria above).

NOTE: BLP will make public any new GESI partnerships.

Subsidy application process

• The process to submit a GESI subsidy applications is as follows:The subsidy application is submitted by a BLP approved BASP to BLP in the “subsidies” section of the BLP Portal on the  Business Advisor page.Note of the following:
• The “SME Client Information” section should be used to describe how the GESI client(s) meet the criteria to receive a GESI subsidy.
•  The “Project Information” section should be used to describe who the lead advisor on the project will be, the type of services you plan to provide the SME clients, a description of the overall project, and an overall background on the clients. You (the business advisor) should also be able to describe the types of unique challenges the SME clients you are targeting face (because of their status as women, youth, Indigenous, or other marginalized) and how you plan to tailor your services to ensure they are relevant to this type of client. As well as any information about theirs and/or your work with a GESI partner (where applicable) to clearly demonstrate the need for subsidy.
• The “Previous Experience” section should be used to describe your (the BASP’s) previous experience working with these types of SME clients. You should be able to provide 2 examples. You should also be able to demonstrate past experience of when you have had to work with multiple clients (that fit this target population) simultaneously.

  Note: In order to ensure funds are allocated quickly, effectively and where most needed, BLP subsidised
  projects are expected to commence within 4 weeks of the signing date. If the work has not commenced within
  4 weeks, BLP reserves the right to cancel the subsidy approval and the subsidy application may need to be
  resubmitted.

Subsidy claims and payments

1. When the subsidy project is completed, the BASP submits an invoice for the agreed subsidy amount to BLP along with evidence of the completed work deliverables and evidence of payment from the small businesses for their share of the project costs.
2. The GESI clients are also required to email BLP to confirm that the work has been completed satisfactorily before BLP can approve the subsidy invoice for payment.
3. Payment will be made within 30 days of the correctly submitted invoice and all supporting documents, including evidence of payment and email/communication from the client/small business confirming project completion.