On behalf of the German government, GIZ Egypt, through the Agricultural Innovation Project, and in cooperation with the Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation and Chemonics, organised the closing ceremony for the Business Development and Acceleration Programme in Minya governorate.
The closing ceremony was held over two days. The activities of the Business Development and Acceleration Programme began in May 2021, with the objective to create job opportunities, increase competitiveness, and promote sustainable and inclusive growth by supporting the growth of innovative companies and introducing new opportunities for youth and women in rural communities in Minya. The programme was implemented through five main key interventions: Business Opportunity Mapping, Training of Trainers (ToT) Programme, Incubators’ Support, and Incubation and Acceleration Programmes.
The Acceleration Programme was held over two rounds with the participation of 51 companies in total. Thirty-one companies made it to the second round of the programme. At the end of the programme, the participating companies succeeded in increasing their profit percentage by 20% and hired more than 140 new employees at their companies with 33% women representation.
The Incubation Programme served more than 75 projects, starting from the Bootcamp, where 31 teams with exciting ideas were chosen to benefit from a series of workshops and individual consultations for developing work plans, marketing research and financial planning. Following that, a panel was held to evaluate the ideas presented in the programme and 25 ideas were selected to benefit from the first grant by the Agricultural Innovation Project. All projects were encouraged to register legally to be officially registered and get the chance to compete for the second grant. By the closing ceremony, four companies succeeded to register legally with the support of the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency. The startups are Asmastevia, the Agricultural Innovation Nursery, Dr Yu, and St George Apiary.
