For the past twenty years, Rwanda’s economyhas developed enormously, formalizing and expanding the private sector in a bid to con-tinue expanding its economic growth. It is in this line that, Africa Development Consultant Limited (ADC) was formed with the aim of support-ing Rwanda’s vision of becoming a knowledge-based economy. Established in 2006, ADC develops products and services that help strengthen capacity and improve the viability of micro, small and medium enterprises that employ more than 80% of Rwanda’s Population. Rebecca Ruzibuka, the Managing Director of ADC explains that aside from supporting enterprises in development of business plans to access bank loans and grants, ADC also helps enterprises in identifying markets and conducting market analysis training on commodity value chain management. “We also support enterprises engaged in Off Grid Energy access funding to upscale their activities and train enterprise key personnel on accounting and fi-nancial management,” Ruzibuka said. ADC also assists enterprises in conceptualizing and implementing program or project strategies, product and supply chain development, marketing, business and human resources and other development activi-ties to improve their competitiveness. Impact on the Private Sector ADC has been working closely with NGOs includ-ing Digital Opportunity Trust (DOT) Rwanda and SPARK – Rwanda in supporting youth and women break the poverty cycle through Entrepreneurship Programs. For the past ten years, as implementing partner of the United States African Development Foundation (USADF), ADC has facilitated more than fifty agri-culture cooperatives access over $ 8 million in in-vestment and capacity building grants. As a contractor with Rwanda Development Board, the organization has provided business development services and management of the business develop-ment service centers in Kigali City and Eastern Prov-ince, from 2012-2014. ADC trained 2,613 entrepre-neurs most of them youth. The beneficiaries gained skills in business plan writing, basic accounting and financial management; marketing principles; cus-tomer care; cooperatives management and resource mobilization, and this has contributed to the profes-sionalization of their businesses. Contracted by the Ministry of Industry and Trade in 2011 to 2013, ADC participated in the implemen-tation of the Hanga Umurimo Project where 17 en-terprises were facilitated to access bank loans and collateral from Business Development Fund (BDF) and were provided with business advisory services. As a service provider for the Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources project titled “Land Hus-bandry and Water harvesting and Hill sides Irriga-tion and Rural Sector Support Project (LWH-RSSP)” (2013-2014), ADC accomplished training and coach-ing for members of the 8 rice cooperatives, 1 Maize Cooperatives and 11 Water Users Cooperatives that received grant from LWH-RRS. The training and coaching was on entrepreneurship and business Plan writing skills, financial manage-ment and costs of production, marketing and con-tract farming. Also as a service provider for the MI- NAGRI, Single Project Implementing Unit (SPIU) of the IFAD funded projects, ADC has supported 50 co-operatives and companies to access bank loans and grants to invest in post-harvest activities of maize, potatoes, and milk, cassava and horticulture value chains. This assignment is ongoing. ADC has also trained and coached 600 women beneficiaries of Women for Women International on understanding and identifying markets/ market analysis, value chain, create and implement business plans and access finance (2016-2017). Presently ADC is working with Q-Point based in the Netherlands contracted by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) to carry on “Cooperative Business Management Capacity Building training for twenty three horticulture cooperatives supported by the National Agricultural Export Development Board (NAEB) to professionalize their businesses as a pre-requisite to attain export targets. ADC is also coaching 16 Cooperatives engaged in maize value chain supported by the USAID- Private Sector Driven Agriculture Growth (PSDAG) that were trained on Cooperative Governance and mem-ber services; Strategic planning; Business planning; Business Management and Supply chain manage-ment. Coaching is ongoing to ensure that profession-alism is improved. Future plans Ruzibuka noticed that most of the private sector en-terprises that accessed ADC business development services were through the government or donor pro-grams. She hence observed that the number of enterprises accessing business development services is still neg- providers on strategies that can underpin the importance of acquiring basic entrepreneur-ship skills before registering a business or even before acquiring a bank loan or grant. “For enterprises that develop business plans, the will also be encouraged to include budget for capacity building in professionalizing their businesses.” KN 5 (Airport road), TEDEUM Building (next to Mirror Hotel), House Number 44, First Floor, Right Wing Tel: +250255100487, +250 255 100 487 www.adcrwanda.org
