It mainly targets the youth and fresh graduates to address the unemployment problem and alleviate poverty in Rwanda

The Rwanda Private Sector Federation (PSF) has announced the launch of the fourth Business Plan Competition (BPC) for the year 2008-09.

The announced was made by the PSF Secretary General, Emmanuel Hategeka, after the awarding ceremony of the third BPC winners, where 50 entrepreneurs were awarded guarantee funds worth US$500,000 (Rwf275.6m).

The competition is a programmes initiated by the PSF, government and World Bank (WB) aimed at promoting entrepreneurial development.

The  WB support is channelled via  its Competitiveness and Enterprise Development Project (CEDP). It mainly targets the youth and fresh graduates to address the unemployment problem and alleviate poverty in Rwanda.

Hategeka said, ‘Sensitisation about the programme will begin in January country wide  with the issuing of application forms through Business Development Service (BDS) centres’. The forms are collected after two months.

According to Antoine Rutayisire Manzi, the federation’s Director of Entrepreneurship and Business Growth, the initial evaluation starts to remove incomplete and poorly filled forms.

According to the programme, finalists receive a comprehensive training on business plan writing skills, which they use to  prepare them for their projects.

The detailed  second plans are collected and presented to Rwanda Development bank (BRD) for the final evaluation. Evaluation is carried out the same way as that of ordinary loan seekers.

It is from these criteria that finalists are chosen. Next year, PSF is targeting over 100 winners to benefit from the programme.

Manzi said that out of the targeted number of at least 150 entrepreneurs who will benefit from training and related components, 100 of these are slated to win each year.

This is aimed at increasing the number of young entrepreneurs in Rwanda and to help boost the performance of the private sector which is considered to be a backbone of the country’s economy.

He explained that this upscale program has been backed by the positive impact registered out of the pioneering edition of the competition.

‘The program beneficiaries have created employment and revenues to the government treasury, which all contributes to the country’s economic development’, he added.

Statistics related to the previous 30 winners in the last two contests indicate that 17 projects developed became operational which provided about 250 jobs while paying taxes to the treasury.

Manzi said that this was proof enough that the program was in tandem with efforts geared at developing a culture of entrepreneurship as the country marches towards achieving the Vision 2020.

He however cautioned that the programme will only be sustainable with the support of stakeholders, since the WB support programme has come to an end.

Initiated in 2004, the programme has seen 100 young entrepreneurs awarded capital and technical assistance for the purposes of building their businesses.

This year saw winners for the guarantee fund increase from 30 for the last two programmes to 50 in this year’s contest. This follows the increase of funding by the WB from US$200,000 (Rwf111.2m) to US$500,000 (Rwf275.6m).

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