The Inter-American Development Bank’s Multilateral Investment Fund announced today the approval of a US$4.4 million grant for a program for small enterprises business plan competitions in Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela.
The project will be executed by TechnoServe, an organization that supports and stimulates entrepreneurs. The non-profit will provide US$2,860,000 in counterpart financing to the initiative.
TechnoServe has organized Business Plan Competitions since 2002, designed and implemented with local partners in Central America and parts of Africa. The methodology to be utilized in this new program covers the entire cycle of business and entrepreneurship development and is structured in three phases: preparation and design, competitions (including capture of business ideas, training and business plan preparation, and selection and reward) and technical assistance to winning business plans to support launch and implementation.
“The beneficiaries of the program will include 960 business initiatives that will receive support in developing their business plans,” said MIF team leader Daniel Shepherd. “Also around 670 of these same business initiatives will receive support to launch their enterprise.”
The program reflects the principles of Opportunities for the Majority, an IDB initiative that seeks to expand access to tools, goods and services for those people that live in the economic base of the pyramid that can help them accumulate assets and improve their living standards. “With this project, some 3600 people will obtain new employment opportunities and thousands more are expected to gain access to goods and services within the base of the pyramid market,” explained Shepherd.
TechnoServe is a non-profit founded in 1968. The organization helps entrepreneurial men and women in poor rural areas of the developing world to build businesses that create income, opportunity and economic growth for their families, their communities and their countries.
MIF, an autonomous fund administered by the IDB, supports private sector development in Latin America and the Caribbean, focusing on microenterprise and small business.