234 ENTREPRENEURS MAKE THE CUT

MBABANE – A total of 234 entrepreneurs could see their business dreams become a reality courtesy of funding under the Youth Enterprise Revolving Fund (YERF).

These applicants have made it to the second stage of the evaluation process.
YERF Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Bhekizwe Maziya made this disclosure during the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the fund and Luhlelo Lolunotsisa Temabhizinisi Business Management Extension Programme (LULOTE BMEP) yesterday.

The CEO stated that last year, a total of 270 youth had applied with only 49 being successful, which equated to 18 per cent of the overall number of applicants. This year, 30 per cent of the 780 applications, which is equivalent to 234 entrepreneurs, have proceeded to the second stage.

challenge

What they had observed to as a challenge according to Maziya was the low quality of comprehensive business proposals. He mentioned that this prompted them to engage LULOTE BMEP, which specialises in business development.

“As we roll out our programme, we are realising that among other challenges, there is a serious need for capacity-building that has to be undertaken. The youth needs to be well capacitated to be in a position to put together a convincing business proposal that has been well researched,” he said.

Maziya said some of the loan applications failed not because they were poor or lame ideas, did not go through because they were not well packaged.
The CEO said LULOTE BMEP would provide support and capacitate entrepreneurs with business skills. LULOTE BMEP provides business training and consultancy services to Eswatini entrepreneurs.

Maziya explained that the 70 per cent which did not make it to the second stage of evaluation would be assisted to develop their proposals.
“As we continue to create awareness on the availability of funding for youth businesses, the demand for capacity-building on the young entrepreneurs is also increasing. This, therefore, brings about the need for the fund to continue forging strategic partnerships to widen the pool of business development service providers,” added Maziya.

sustainable

He continued to state the partnership with LULOTE would help develop finance-ready businesses, therefore creating a sustainable pipeline to feed into YERF’s programme.
Maziya said it was such interventions that were going to increase access to funding not only for the youth, but to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in general.

“As an organisation, we realised that it is not the lack of funds that inhibits business start-ups by local entrepreneurs. However, it is the lack of capacity to produce financeable business proposals as well as the lack of inclusive development finance models by local financial institutions,” he added.
LULOTE BMEP Director Patrick Masarirambi said it was disturbing to note that a number of small enterprises were not successful because due to the lack of knowledge and business management skills.

He said they also provide mentoring and coaching, which also helps entrepreneurs in finding the right markets for their products. “This then made things easier for the funder to give out money to someone who already has a market for their produce,” he said.

Masarirambi stated the, two year maximum mentoring programme, was mostly women who participated in the mentoring and programmes to which he said they were currently about 75 per cent.

That he said was a job easy for them as they (women) had a way of passing the knowledge to the next generation.
He went on to say the partnership to them was a job made easy for YERF as they will only be going through applications from aspiring entrepreneurs who already had the knowledge of business. “We hope this partnership will help make job much easier for the fund,” he said.

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