The inclusive approach to disaster resilience of Turkish business
Recent events in Türkiye such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the high-magnitude earthquakes that happened earlier this year served as a reminder that disasters affect the competitiveness and sustainability of enterprises. They catalysed better cooperation and renewed support for the micro-, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in the country.
The Turkish Enterprise and Business Confederation, TÜRKONFED, representing 30 federations and 300 associations with more than 60,000 companies as members, has crisis management as part of its core strategy.
In Türkiye, the business community seeks to improve its own resilience to minimize the impacts of disasters and maximize its capacity to support public authorities in case of need. The strategic priorities are identified as:
- Strengthening the support mechanism to assist the public authorities in case of need,
- Developing practical operational crisis management tools for enterprises, and
- Reinforcing intersectoral coordination for improved use of resources.
Below are three examples of how CBi Turkiye have been supporting business resilience, women, and youth.
Capacity-building to develop small business resilience in Izmir
CBi Member Network co-hosts in Türkiye, Business for Goals (B4G) and TÜRKONFED, worked with Sağlam KOBİ – the “Solid SME project – in 2021. The objective of this CBi-funded project was to train the enterprises located in recent disaster centers in İzmir. Sağlam KOBİ’s modules are designed to generate emergency action plans for small and medium enterprises (SMEs), thereby enhancing their resilience. To date, 29 SMEs in Izmir have benefitted from these trainings.
Trainings were provided by experts, covering the following modules:
- Disaster resistance test
- Best 20 tips for resilience
- Business resilience 101 workbook
- Emergency action plan
After the completion of these four training modules, one-to-one mentorship was provided with the aim of determining specific needs of SMEs and aiding them to complete their emergency action plan.
The main lesson learnt from this pilot study was that SMEs may need to maintain an emergency action plan in place for regulatory and compliance reasons, but often lack the capacity to execute these plans. Another ongoing theme was the need for regular drills carried out by SMEs. Such exercises are essential to be able to respond in a steady and guided way in the case of a disaster.
Over the past year, as part of the “Resilience in Business Project”, TÜRKONFED and TÜSİAD, the Turkish Industry and Business Association (TÜSIAD), with the financial support of the UPS Foundation, conducted four trainings in four cities, namely Istanbul, Kocaeli, Denizli and Izmir. The trainings included an informative session on non-structural risks that SMEs may face, covering topics such as such as earthquake risk management, occupational safety, damage assessment, and post-earthquake business sustainability. The goal was to raise SME awareness about non-structural risks and to encourage them to take precautions by making risk reduction plans and taking other necessary precautions.
In these four trainings had almost 250 participants, including local businesspeople, NGO representatives, state officials from AFAD Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency, academicians, representatives from chambers of engineers, architects, and city planners. They each received one of the 250 emergency disaster backpacks containing items such as a first aid kit, gloves, face masks, flashlight etc. to encourage participants to make necessary preparations.
Women in business
TÜRKONFED has established a working group/commission to focus only on women’s participation in business world. Within this group called “Women in the Business World” commission, studies are carried out, reports are prepared, and special projects started to encourage women's entrepreneurship efforts, support women entrepreneurs, and increase women’s employment.
Since 2021, the special project Leading Women Entrepreneurship for Accelerating Development, or “WeLead” is run by TÜRKONFED with the support of Türkiye İş Bankası and in partnership with UNWomen (The United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women). Its goal is to reach 5000 women.
WeLead was designed to support women entrepreneurs in different regions of Türkiye, regardless of sector and scale, to enable them to adapt to the rapid changes in the world. Within the scope of the project, online and face-to-face trainings on technical issues such as digitalization, e-export and marketing are provided to women entrepreneurs in addition to mentoring support. Modules include gender equality, networking with the institutions active in the market, and creation of channels where women can exhibit their products and come together.
TÜRKONFED engages younger business people in the organization through the “Youth, Education and Innovation” working group/commission, focusing on individuals between the ages of 15-35 and with the goal of preparing young people for the business world.
With the motto of “Empowering the young leaders of the 21st century”, TÜRKONFED encourages their younger members to join other commissions and Board Meetings, and ensures that their voices are heard.
One upcoming series of events will focus on freelance work, 21st century competencies and job/employment opportunities, creating a culture of intergenerational cooperation, new generation representatives of family companies and new workspaces brought by technology, money management and investment types.