By Aisha Tamba
The National Agricultural Land and Water Management Development Project (Nema) under its African Development Bank’s P2RS-Building Resilience project Tuesday launched a six months Start-Up Incubator/Accelerator programme for over 30 selected young people.
The programme will be facilitated by the Start-Up Incubator Gambia.
Speaking at the launching, the Nema/P2RS Project Director Momodou L. Gassama said the incubation programme is geared towards creating profitable and sustainable businesses for the country’s young women and youths.
He thanked Startup Incubator for the partnership and called on the selected young entrepreneurs to take the programme seriously.
“We designed this programme, which is the first of its kind in Agricultural projects to create sustainable agricultural enterprises that can be run by young people. We want to create more youth enterprises and that can only be possible through this programme,” he added.
He called on the young entrepreneurs to also persuade to become Service Providers in different domains in the agricultural value chain.
The Nema/P2RS Business Development Officer, Banky Njie said the Start-Up Incubator is designed to help entrepreneurs to solve some of their problems that are commonly associated with running a start-up business by providing workspace, seed funding, mentoring, coaching and training.
“The sole purpose of a start-up incubation program is to help entrepreneurs grow their business. You will be pleased that there is some amount of seed capital attached to this program,” Mr Njie told the beneficiaries.
He continued: “You will also receive financial assistance in cash, kind or mixture of both, provided you abide to the terms and conditions of the tripartite agreement that you have all signed.”
Mr Njie intimated that within six months, the beneficiaries business plans will be perfected with guidance from SIG and based on their achieved milestones, “They will be qualify to receive the disbursements in nothing more than 3 installments for use in the setting up and operationalisation of their businesses.”
The Project Manager Start-Up Incubator, Alieu Jallow hailed Nema- P2RS for choosing hi office to be the implementers of the project and reassured them that he will live to expectation.
At the end of the launch, participants were presented with the signed Memorandum of Understanding that outlines the terms of engagement, including the qualification for the financial assistance and seed funding.
The launch was graced by the Deputy PS, Ministry of Youth and Sports, senior members of the Nema/P2RS and consultants and board members of Start-Up Incubator, GYIN Gambia among others dignitaries.
