{"id":19764,"date":"2022-09-10T11:30:00","date_gmt":"2022-09-10T11:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/m780m-to-boost-small-businesses"},"modified":"2022-09-10T11:30:00","modified_gmt":"2022-09-10T11:30:00","slug":"m780m-to-boost-small-businesses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/m780m-to-boost-small-businesses","title":{"rendered":"M780m to boost small businesses"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Lesotho. <\/strong><\/span>THE Government of Lesotho has received M780 million (US$45 million) financing from the World Bank to implement the Competitiveness and Financial Inclusion (CAFI) Project.<br \/>\nThe project starts this month.<br \/>\nTrade Minister Dr Thabiso Molapo said \u201centrepreneurship is the main driver of economic growth\u201d.<br \/>\n\u201cIt is also a factor that makes communities more vibrant, inclusive, and secure,\u201d Dr Molapo said.<br \/>\nHe said these are some of the reasons that motivated the design of the CAFI Project, and they are confident as the ministry that the initiative is going to address the challenges faced by Basotho business people, especially women and youths.<br \/>\n\u201cThis facility will be an entrepreneurship knowledge hub and business incubator that will work with entrepreneurs to help them learn how to turn their ideas into enterprises,\u201d he said.<br \/>\nDr Molapo said this initiative has come at an opportune time when the country is facing serious socio-economic challenges including the scourge of poverty and high rate of youth unemployment.<br \/>\nHe said this is by far the biggest and the most transformational intervention that is designed to address lack of access to business support services and financial products in Lesotho.<br \/>\nThe World Bank Country Director, Marie-Franc\u0327oise Marie-Nelly, said the money will not only promote business but further improve the entrepreneurship ecosystem.<br \/>\nMarie-Nelly said the project is targeting youths and women.<br \/>\n\u201cThis will help Basotho to participate in the development of wealth by turning their ideas into business,\u201d she said.<br \/>\n\u201cThis will also be addressing the challenge of inequality in the country.\u201d<br \/>\nShe said they are also ensuring that the initiative is connected globally so that entrepreneurs can have access to global markets.<br \/>\nThe Project Manager of Private Sector Competitiveness and Economic Diversification, Chaba Mokuku, said the project started on September 2 and is expected to run for the next six years.<br \/>\nHe said they evaluated the economic performance of Lesotho over the decade prior to Covid-19.<br \/>\nHe explained that in 2012, the economic growth was negatively affected by the political instability.<br \/>\nIn 2020 and this year, the situation was exacerbated by Covid-19 and the war in Ukraine.<br \/>\n\u201cThis also affected our performance in terms of doing business,\u201d Mokuku said.<br \/>\nMokuku said the new competitiveness and financial inclusion project was then built on the previous Private Sector Competitiveness and Economic Diversification Project Phase II.<br \/>\nHe said it was designed to improve the business environment for firms, strengthen select government institutions and further diversify the economy.<br \/>\nHe said the business environment has been improved in areas such as horticulture and tourism.<br \/>\nMokuku said the new project\u2019s objective is to increase access to business support services and financial products for Micro, Small &amp; Medium Enterprises (MSMEs).<br \/>\nMokuku said the project is composed of scaling support for business and MSMEs by enhancing an entrepreneurship hub and seed financing facility.<br \/>\nIt will also scale the Lesotho enterprise assistance programme Lesotho Enterprises Assistance Program (LEAP) for MSMEs.<br \/>\nMokuku said the project also seeks to explore SME participation in high potential chains where they will focus on the textile and horticulture sector.<br \/>\nHe said there are currently 42 active textile firms after eight were shut down during the Covid-19 pandemic.<br \/>\nBasotho only own six out of 42 firms.<br \/>\n\u201cWe want to encourage Basotho to venture into the textile sector.\u201d<br \/>\nThe Senior Private Sector Specialist at the World Bank, Michael Ehst, said Lesotho entrepreneurship ecosystem is currently in the activation phase where there is limited start-up experience, low start-up of around M1 000.<br \/>\nHe said they want to focus on increasing the start-up output and early stage funding.<br \/>\nHe further said they are seeking to activate entrepreneurial minded people and grow a more connected local community that helps each other.<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\">Lesotho<\/a> Follow <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/\">Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Lesotho. THE Government of Lesotho has received M780 million (US$45 million) financing from the World Bank to implement the Competitiveness and Financial Inclusion (CAFI) Project. The project starts this month. Trade Minister Dr Thabiso Molapo said \u201centrepreneurship is the main driver of economic growth\u201d. \u201cIt is also a factor that makes communities more [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":19763,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,5,7,8,16],"tags":[233,246,245],"class_list":["post-19764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-economy","category-head-lines","category-homepage-english","category-twitter","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-lesotho","tag-lesotho"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>M780m to boost small businesses - Lesotho<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/m780m-to-boost-small-businesses\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"M780m to boost small businesses\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Africa-Press &#8211; Lesotho. THE Government of Lesotho has received M780 million (US$45 million) financing from the World Bank to implement the Competitiveness and Financial Inclusion (CAFI) Project. The project starts this month. 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