Introduction Sustainability Access to Finance for the Young Enterprises Community Leadership Market Development Selection of the Right Youngsters to Run A Business Inclusiveness of (Young) Women in Women Unfriendly Areas Fruitful Mentor System Smart Models / Tools for Young Enterprises On Rural Hub-Making Most Promising Initiatives
Are there fruitful models/tools? What are the lessons in this?

Focus on Attitude and in Products

  • Organize annual trade fairs, pitching sessions, business plan competitions where the selected youngsters can present their products in an attractive way to communities local government, business-men and investors. Not to NGO jury’s!!! (See for example Sote Hub/ON)
  • In the field, there is a big competition of acceleration and fostering programs for start-ups. Some start-ups are going from the one award winning round to the other. (cross wise works) Most acceleration programs have no interest in rural, because they are looking for scale opportunities
  • Cooperate with existing training programmes from schools or NGO’s or the graduated students from other trainings and select the talented and motivated ones.

Existing Points of Entry

  • Partnering with existing organizations working with youth, entrepreneurs, etc. are effective and relatively efficient points of entry.
  • Tanzania Gatsby Trust partnered with micro-finance initiatives to identify members of their savings and loans groups who might be good candidates for the program.
  • While these points of access to young entrepreneurs are useful, it is important to note that they fall short of identifying high-potential youth from marginalized groups.

Business Plan Competitions

  • These are relatively brief and cost-effective methods to identify youth with entrepreneurial drive and high potential. They also help in bolstering brand identity and increasing outreach. (Mazhar e-Sharif University Business Plan Competition pilot, GIZ’s Sustainable Economic Development Program). But instead of focusing on a brilliant business idea, rather focus on the talent of the entrepreneur (ON).
A stratified programmatic approach enables a narrowing down of participants through a multi-stage program, where the number of participants reduce at each stage.