"Sawtouna" is Jordan's first proactive entrepreneur, start-up, and small/medium enterprise (SME) advocacy effort that strives to make grassroots entrepreneurship commonplace in the Jordanian business environment.
         In January 2004, under the theme “Orchestrating Talents Celebrating Success”, the Young Entrepreneurs Association brought together Jordanian and regional decision makers with leading World figures in academia and business, to exchange ideas and perspectives on Global Entrepreneurship and on ways to unleash the entrepreneurial spirit in Jordan.
The Forum delivered a unique participatory event where all entrepreneurial needs, concerns, and aspirations were poured into a dynamic dialogue process between and among entrepreneurs and policy makers. As a result, the mindset, environment, conditions and responsibilities that needs to be in place for entrepreneurship to flourish in Jordan were identified and processed into a report. A Public Policy Advocacy Committee (PPAC) was created at the YEA to deal with these issues.
          Through a CIPE funded project starting in December 2006 and titled “YEA Public Policy Advocacy (PPA) Committee: Toward Effective Advocacy in Jordan”, the PPAC launched a campaign that became known as the Sawtouna (Our Voice) initiative. Sawtouna aims at becoming the first public policy advocacy effort focused on improving the business environment for small and medium enterprises and start-ups through pressure for legislative and structural reform. The amalgamated efforts for Sawtouna’s first year created a solid, reputable and effective advocacy body for SMEs and entrepreneurs based on the production of six core issue papers:
       a. Reducing minimum capital requirements for limited liability companies.
       b. Reducing and clarifying the requirements for registration and licensing
       c. Reducing and clarifying taxation; income tax, sales tax, and customs’ duties
       d. Enforcing intellectual property laws
       e. Reforming the national education curriculum to include critical thinking and "soft" skills   
       f. Reformation of laws that hinder the ability of financial institutions to support start-ups

            Each of the research papers was followed up by lobbying efforts including seminars and support groups to build up a public support base. Relevant stakeholders and decision makers were visited and invited to open roundtable discussions. Out of these research papers came several tangible accomplishments:

• Creation of a new draft company’s law that is now underway. Sawtouna was a member of the advisory committee for the new law and the minimum capital requirement was reduced from 30,000 JDs to 1,000 JDs within it based on Sawtouna’s suggested reforms
• Communication with the public, building an awareness base was achieved through a series of articles, and a radio show
• Creation of a relationship with the Jordanian parliament through hosting debates, creating a student staffers program, and attendance of parliamentary sessions
• Creation of a corporate lobbying series
• Building an association coalition from private sector organizations and associations
• Sawtouna was assigned to work with the Companies Control Directorate by the Minister of Industry and Trade

           The Sawtouna initiative received huge success last year, and aided in establishing YEA as a voice for the private sector. Public Advocacy II is a continuation of this, with a concentration on the following themes:
• Creation of temporary business licenses
• Establishing electronic registration
• Imposing a “silence is consent” policy
• Removing owner requirements

 YEA is also working with several committees on the following topics:
Small Office Home Office(SOHO)
Bankruptcy Law