You are here: > Home > Programs > Business and Entrepreneurship Development (BED)
Business and Entrepreneurship Development(BED)
The Business and Entrepreneurship Development (BED) Program is meant to scale up enterprise formation, growth and promote an entrepreneurial culture among the youth.
This is in line with YES Rwanda’s two main objectives:
- To Build the Capacity of Young People to Create Sustainable Livelihoods.
- To Establish an Entrepreneurial Culture where young Persons and Youth Work towards self Employment.
The BED Program links up with other YES Rwanda programs -- it collaborates with the PORA Program on how to improve business environment to start- ups and with the YLE Program to transform the livelihoods of very disadvantaged young people by equipping them with skills relevant to the labor market.
Entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurship is a set of skills, knowledge, attitudes and values that can generally increase employability of youth, whether seeking self-employment and operating a micro or small enterprise, or working in the private sector, public sector, an NGO or any combination as part of a productive livelihood pathway. There is, therefore, need to promote entrepreneurship in the country. We endeavor to promote change in attitudes and values, policy and regulatory environment, education, finance and business support.
Currently BED is running a business incubator
A Business Incubator is a facility designed to nurture and support emerging businesses (start –ups) to become established and profitable, while creating jobs and wealth in playing a major role in socio-economy of a country.
The main objective of this project is to establish the potential and practical mechanisms that will help get youth succeed in businesses and equip themselves with skills.
The goal is to create an entrepreneurial culture among youth aimed at taking the lead in sustainable development as compared to just economic development by using the initial assistance from the public and non-profit donors to leverage long-term solutions. The overall long-term plan is to have the incubator in major towns funded by investors who expect a return on their investment and who have a financial stake in its success.
Duration
The duration of incubation for start-ups will be approximately three years but this will also depend on the level of needs of the incubated business or company, some can grow from a period of between a few months to three years. Incubatee companies then graduate and leave the incubator to go out to expand their businesses.
Services under the Business Incubator
- Provide office space at subsidized rental rates in Kigali - The office space will be a walk-in and work office with already furnished work-stations, front office and back office services.
- High-speed internet connectivity- The incubator will connect internet to all offices throughout working hours.
- Consultancy services, such as in business development, management, marketing and legal among others. This value-addition will serve to counter the culture of outdated ways of doing business.
- Provide regular information on advertised tenders – Information about open tenders (from both the public and private sectors) will be sourced by the business centre and shared to all companies in the incubator.
- Business club networking- This will be done every first Tuesday of the month for business in the incubator to network over a cocktail afternoon and share ideas and find clients. Successful business will be used as role models to share with the incubatees their success stories.
- Work with service industries in Rwanda helping them integrate smaller businesses into their supply chains as suppliers and contractors.
- Arrange for a business exhibition in Rwanda and across East Africa and develop partnerships with regional and overseas young entrepreneurs.
Justification
Statistics from both developed and developing economies show that incubation increases the chances of survival for a new business initiative by about 80% where as the likelihood of survival for a business success for a start-up outside an incubator stands at about 20% or lower.
The formal job absorption rate in Rwanda is low and there is need to encourage MSME's who in return will create more jobs for the growing and young population.
|
