Village Capital project selected 20 African Entrepreneur Support Organisations (ESOs)
20 African entrepreneur support organisations (ESOs) that work with rural-impacting businesses in Sub-Saharan Africa have been chosen by Small Foundation and Village Capital to participate in the Rural Impacting Entrepreneurship research project, which aims to identify gaps and solutions to deepen impact within the rural business ecosystem and develop a thriving support community.
To foster a greater knowledge of the rural-impacting ESO ecosystem across the continent, Small Foundation and Village Capital established the Rural Impacting Entrepreneurship initiative. The past few months have been spent by Village Capital reviewing the landscape of ESOs supporting rural-impacting enterprises in Sub-Saharan Africa in order to determine the various types of support they offer and their efficacy in order to draw conclusions about how these ESOs can better support such enterprises.
“The Rural-Impacting Enterprise support ecosystem in Sub-Saharan Africa is fragmented with many actors operating in different communities, supporting ventures at different levels. By working with ESOs across the region, we’re able to identify where and how to most effectively focus their support efforts, and provide capacity-building training and customisable tools for their effective programming and benefit of the ecosystem as a whole,” said Brenda Wangari, senior programme manager for Africa at Village Capital.
Twenty ESOs from the region’s 30 nations have been chosen for the final cohort after being examined after more than 180 ESOs. These organisations will receive close collaboration from Village Capital as they review their interventions and receive training and access to the Abaca App Supporter Package, which includes a specialized ESO diagnostic tool for tracking performance and individualised support from the Village Capital team.
