Rural economic diversification process has brought with it an interest in rural entrepreneurship agenda as a tool to revitalize the countryside and rural communities in sustainable ways.
Community-based entrepreneurship is one of the options to assist the community, especially its members, to gain entrepreneurial skills and work closely to generate income, eventually providing continuous financial freedom to the community. By working in a group, community-based entrepreneurship offers collective supports financially and non-financially to its members in exploring entrepreneurship opportunities.
The government’s role as regulator and initiator would provide early support and allow the community to slowly embark on community entrepreneurship activities that eventually will be on their own. As entrepreneurship spurs a new business formation and dynamism, working together would help the community learn and explore.
In the early 1990s, the spreading agenda on revitalizing countryside and rural communities in developed country particularly in Japan through One Village One Product (OVOP) agenda has caught the attention of top decision-makers, politicians and development planners in Malaysia.
OVOP can be defined as a set of regional (local) economic and social development activities through the development of products and services based on territorial identities and resources.
OVOP movement, which was initiated in 1979 in Oita prefecture, Japan, is an innovative program in which each local community identifies one or a few products as locally specific, concentrates resources on its production, establishes it as a local brand, and markets it to the entire country or beyond. The movement tries to revitalize depressed local communities by combining the production of commodities with local pride and human resources development.
OVOP is the movement structured by the government but led by local residents voluntarily, based on the concept of developing one village by promoting at least one product where regional resources such as local agricultural products, specialty products, and tourism resources are accepted not just locally but worldwide.
In Malaysia OVOP was introduced under the branding SDSI (satu daerah, satu industri). It was initially introduced as “Satu Karnpung,Satu Produk” (SKSP) in the year 1992.
After that in the year 2002, this programmed being developed as “Satu Kampung, Satu Industri” (SKSI) and one year later it has been changed to ‘Satu Daerah, Satu Industri” (SDSI) that covers broader scopes.
During that time the concept of SDSI inclines towards product development and districts-oriented services that has been commercializes to attract tourists to come and visit certain districts.
SDSI features are a small and medium enterprise that generates economic impacts to the community such as:
• Utilization of local resources
• Generation of earning opportunity to local community
• Creation of jobs opportunity
• Creation direction and spin-off industries
• Utilization of youth force resources
Generally, the SDSI project is indeed a strategic and inclusive development tool for uplifting the quality of life and livelihood of the rural entrepreneurs and community in Malaysia through employment creation and providing new source of income.
Through SDSI, many existing rural enterprises in a particular district has been revitalized and at the same time, many new forms of rural enterprises have been created and nurtured.
