As part of the measures to empower youth in the country and to create market access for start-ups businesses for the local economy, the British Council has organized a festival job for the youth SME trade festival.

The event also brought together various stakeholders in the entrepreneurship ecosystem to interact, network and build linkages. An exhibition platform was given to at least 100 enterprises from the Jobs for Youth Project to showcase, promote, market and sell their products and services.

Speaking at the event, the British Council’s Country Director, Alan Rutt said the initiative is aimed at training the youth in order to promote Small Medium Enterprises.

“The British Council was doing a lot of thinking on how we can develop a program that would enable people to grow their business idea and innovations. So we got our heads together we thought about a program where we could give people training, incubation and acceleration to promote these small medium enterprises emerging entrepreneurs.”

He added that over 3000 youth have benefitted from this initiative with over 400 incubated businesses.


At the festival, attendees were given business coaching as the event brought together industry experts to share experiences as well as business success ideas.


Regulatory bodies from various business industry were present to provide entrepreneurs with the relevant information and support needed for their businesses. This included individuals from GSA, GRA and many more.
At the end of the project 90 entrepreneurs were selected after pitching. The 90 entrepreneurs will get seed funds to take their business to the next level.

The initiative is funded GIZ and other stakeholders.