BIC Africa participated in the Team Europe Initiative (TEI) Investing in Young Businesses in Africa (IYBA) Working Group on Ecosystem Development online workshop with External Stakeholders on 4th July 2022. The workshop aimed at how best practices can inform the design of IYBA Supporting Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Development (SEED) and presenting IYBA-SEED to external partners. The IYBA SEED project is in its stages of finalization and is to be launched in the following months. The event was chaired by Ms. Cécile Billaux Head of Unit E2 – Micro-economic Analysis, Investment Climate, Private Sector, Trade, Employment Directorate-General for International Partnerships (DG INTPA), European Commission
During the first part of the workshop, EU member state organisations (MSOs) (Expertise France, Enabel, GIZ, SlovakAid, SNV) presented the IYBA SEED components, with an emphasis on lessons learnt for each component and participants discussed and reflected on IYBA SEED areas for potential synergies and exchanged on ecosystem development.
The second part of the workshop focused on the regional perspective for ecosystem development where presentations from BIC Africa, UNCDF and the AfDB were made followed by an open discussion on how to connect different national ecosystems.
Robert Sanders presented the BIC Africa four country projects (Angola, Ethiopia, Madagascar & Somalia) activities and the regional network capacity building and networking activities with some of the major opportunities and challenges. We also had the chance to interact with the participants.
The overall objective of IYBA SEEDis to contribute to creating decent jobs and resilient economies by strengthening entrepreneurship ecosystems in a number of sub-Saharan countries that will lead to increased access to financial resources and technical assistance for SEED beneficiaries.
It is important to highlight that the measure of success here will be the impact on SEED beneficiaries (i.e. early-stage businesses, especially led by women, and young entrepreneurs, especially young women), and their increased access to financial resources and technical assistance.
The TEI IYBA -SEED is part of the third Building Block of the Team Europe Initiative “Investing in Young Businesses in Africa”, which is made up of three Building Blocks:
1) Increase the financial and technical support for pre-seed stage entrepreneurs and micro and small enterprises,
2) Increase the finance for SMEs and entrepreneurs at seed and early stages, and
3) Supporting the ecosystem, with a special emphasis on women and young people.
TEI IYBA-SEED is a practical illustration of the Team Europe approach. It is being designed by a consortium of MSOs, identified through the Practitioners’ Network’s Private Sector Workstream, in close collaboration with DG INTPA.
The workshop was attended by over 70 participants from across Africa and Europe.
Read Team Europe Initiative Investing in Young Businesses in Africa: A quick overview