In any economy, a vibrant SME sector is essential for sustainable job creation, poverty reduction and private sector development. It plays a catalytic role in the development of any country. All accept that poverty-elimination in Africa can only come about through investment-driven economic growth. The key to sustainable economic development is the strength, health and competitiveness of small businesses. Africa needs more entrepreneurs which mean more enterprises, and more enterprises will mean more jobs.

In an attempt to help facilitate a further development Futureafrica have established a blog on www.futureafrica.eu for sharing SME success stories that already exists across Africa. Futureafrica’s web site and blogs are visited by thousands of people every week, with this new initiative the hope is that we through this knowledge management tool can help an increase in innovation and start up of new businesses. We invite all small and medium sized businesses across Africa to share their success stories so far with our readers for the benefit of many. All you do is to forward your story in no more than 500 words directly to lars.stork@futureafrica.eu using word document format. Every month we will select the story that we believe would benefit a further development of the SME sector in Africa and other emerging markets.

A symbolic price of US$200 will be awarded every month to the story of the month. Futureafrica will in addition liaise with institutions such as the IFC who together with Fututureafrica can assist turning the idea into reality.

A project of the International Finance Corporation, a member of the World Bank Group, the SME Toolkit offers free business management information and training for small businesses / small and medium enterprises (SMEs) on accounting and finance, business planning, human resources (HR), marketing and sales, operations, and information technology (IT). The SME Toolkit offers a wide range of how-to articles, business forms, free business software, online training, self-assessment exercises, quizzes, and resources to help entrepreneurs, business owners, and managers in emerging markets and developing countries start, finance, formalize, and grow their businesses.

Please contact Futureafrica on the web site: www.futureafrica.eu for more information.

Lars Stork
Managing Director
FutureAfrica

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