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Partner Description:

African Entrepreneur Collective (AEC) is a business accelerator program that aims to help African youth-led enterprises grow and create new jobs for the poor in their communities. This unique, comprehensive program is committed to addressing the problem of unemployment in Rwanda and to capitalizing on the opportunity for sustainable small and medium enterprise (SME) growth to fill a demonstrated need in East Africa.

The program offers business training to young entrepreneurs to enhance their practical skills in accounting, finance, marketing and more. Additionally, AEC provides tailored, real-time support to new entrepreneurs by connecting them with mentors from around the world and providing them with technical assistance and access to capital.

60% of the population in Rwanda is under 24, and roughly 20% is between the ages of 15 and 24. It’s estimated that between now and 2020, two million jobs will have to be created in order to accommodate the growing population of young entrants into the labor market. With more than 10 million people entering Africa’s labor force each year, it’s important to find solutions to the continent’s youth unemployment problem.

By accelerating the growth of some of the country’s 190,000 micro-entrepreneurs, and turning them into job creators, AEC believes it will have the strongest impact on sustainable SME development in Rwanda.

Kiva lenders’ funds are used to impact more entrepreneurs in the country and create more job opportunities.

A unique lending approach

AEC aims to support and invest in young entrepreneurs who have demonstrated success at a small scale, and help them grow their businesses to create jobs for others in their communities. Each year, AEC recruits and selects 100 entrepreneurs to participate in a two-year business accelerator. Once identified through competitive applications, entrepreneurs receive business training to sharpen their skills.

Overall, the organization works in three areas: a) focus on existing entrepreneurs to provide them additional support to expand the business and become more successful. b) develop entrepreneurial capacity by providing practical, strategic and hands-on mentoring and training to equip entrepreneurs with hard and soft skills needed for growth. c) remove barriers to growth by providing technical assistance and deliver curriculum on practical skills and building individual capacity.

AEC currently offers a business loan program which is offered exclusively for the entrepreneurs that are part of the accelerator program. The goal of this program is to help entrepreneurs withstand low cash flow periods and purchase capital equipment and inventory to increase capacity, as they are growing their business in order to access larger, longer term financing in the future.