The National Enterprise Development Initiative (NEDI) basically conducts general entrepreneurship training; provide support to young people in developing business plans without which funders cannot sponsor youths for grants or loans, that is according the General Manager of NEDI, Mr. Abbas Bah.
“NEDI creates the enabling environment and support for entrepreneurs by helping youth to register their businesses, create bank accounts to legalize their status as well as to solidify youth entrepreneurs in the Gambia,” he told this medium.
The NEDI boss charged that one of the strengths of his organization is that, they have a comparative advantage in capacity building of youth and women across the board and countrywide, when it comes to entrepreneurship but laments that, the parliamentary Act that established the organization limits their scope of responsibilities to just trainers.
Stating NEDI has no financial aid for their trainees, Bah believes that hampers the progress of their institution. He added, “We have trained many young people and women nationwide, but we don’t have funding power for these trainees.” He explained that talks are ongoing with government to see how best to devise a national scheme for the youths and women so that after training and capacity building, they could access financial aid to start their own businesses. Bah vouched that young people are always ready to venture into entrepreneurship and other businesses.
The GM further informed that recently, NEDI conducted a SWOT [Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats] analysis of the institution which was done by external assessors; and one of their findings was that the institution was limited by the parliamentary Act which mainly assigned the youth body to just one major function, viz. conducting training and capacity building to women and youths.
As an institution, he laments, they are finding it difficult to penetrate but quickly noted that government is now coming up with a scheme where trainees would be given affordable loans in the future, to establish their own entrepreneurial businesses upon their training and graduations.
Bah said, “Right now all we do is to make sure youths and women are coached, mentored and trained.” His institution conducts mentorships, training, coaching, market linkages and external exposures for youth and women to help their trainees get access to the already available EU-funded schemes such as loans and grants from the Youth Empowerment Project, the Tekki-FII project and others, throughout the nation.
He reported that currently, they have ran an entrepreneurship survey and data collection countrywide in partnership with students from the University of The Gambia (UTG), and that they were able to collect 1,500 youth and women who are into various entrepreneurship businesses.
This, the NEDI senior official continued, has helped them to understand the challenges of these youth entrepreneurs and would channel these challenges to the authorities.
On entrepreneurship in the Gambia, the General Manager charged that the Gambia must strive in the area, reasoning that they have no choices but to succeed in making it here since it’s vital in the country’s economy.
“My view [is that] they are coming even though there are real challenges,” said NEDI’s General Manager. He posited that government should cut taxes but even local rates, as he decried that this is posing hindrance to entrepreneurship in the country. Bah pointed to the coronavirus Disease infamously called COVID-19 which he stated has created other challenges for entrepreneurs in the country. That trade and business activities have gone down as the movements of people had been restricted greatly.
The NEDI boss finally encouraged youth and women to be steadfast, while thanking government for the enabling environment as well as applauded donors to continue their invaluable support to the Gambia, through the Ministry of Youth and Sport. He underlined that they are playing pivotal roles in the entrepreneurship industry in the Gambia.
