COVID-19 Relief Programme: Empowering Entrepreneurs in Emerging Economies

Launched by enpact as a part of its Empowering Entrepreneurship Initiative, the COVID-19 Relief Programme kicked off its first phase in November 2020. We’re thrilled to see the 180 participating businesses taking tangible steps towards a real pandemic recovery.  At the current stage, they are receiving online training sessions on leadership and resilience, project management, and financial management. This 3-month phase will be followed by another 3 months of mentorship, where the participants will meet up with their mentors at extensive and diverse online workshops. The program also encompasses monthly financial backing for the participants, enabling them to focus their time and energy on getting back on track.

Reviving small and medium businesses in emerging markets during the pandemic

According to the IMF’s latest World Economic Outlook Update, emerging market economies are estimated to shrink by 3.3 percent this year, due to the COVID-19 attack. Such a harsh hit is considered the largest drop for emerging markets throughout the past 60 years. The report states that the COVID-19 recession will affect the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) particularly hard, putting their debt and jobs at risk.

Whether by phasing out operations, or laying off employees, young businesses have had to adapt a lot of drastic measures to cope with the crisis and stay afloat. For the young ventures in emerging economies, the pandemic has been a real threat to survival. 

Live Updates
[Last Updated: February 5th, 2021]

The COVID-19 Relief Programme is currently in its second stage; 180 participating businesses from Egypt, Jordan, Ghana, Kenya, and Indonesia are now receiving training and assessment activities. The duration of this stage is three months, to be followed by the mentorship phase.

“We are thrilled to implement the COVID-19 Relief Programme for young innovative businesses in emerging economies, where challenges exceed the opportunities offered to them. We look forward to supporting them in remodelling their businesses, getting back on track and taking tangible steps towards sustainability.” – Matthias Treutwein, Co-founder & Managing Director, enpact.

At enpact, we strive to empower entrepreneurs across all stages of their journey. We also believe that young businesses and SMEs play a key role in emerging markets and even drive global growth by adding value and solving problems. However, they often lack direct access to support resources or stimulus packages.

In the framework of our Empowering Entrepreneurship Initiative, we are implementing the COVID-19 Relief Programme, in order to support 180 young innovative businesses that operate in different sectors in Egypt, Jordan, Ghana, Kenya, and Indonesia. With a holistic approach that combines financial backing, extensive business training and individual mentoring, the COVID-19 Relief Programme equips them with the resources to tackle the challenges imposed by the pandemic, sustain their business, and grow through such a challenging time.

How do the participants benefit from the COVID-19 Relief Programme?

The goal of the COVID-19 Relief Programme is to help the entrepreneurs in emerging markets to focus on the core of their work towards achieving their goals. By harnessing their full, undivided time and energy, they can get back on track and meet the changing market demands. 

The participants will benefit from individual mentoring sessions that are tailored to their business needs, financial support of up to 9000 Euros, extensive training and workshops, plus lifetime access to our global network of +1000 startups, +300 mentors, experts and investors across five different continents.

What next?

Once announced, the participants will be onboarded through a series of virtual launch events to kickstart the Empowering Entrepreneurship Initiative community. 

In the first three months of the programme, enpact experts will provide the participants with extensive technical support. This will take the form of deep-dive workshops on crisis management, business development, leadership, and growth. 

For the last three months of the programme, the participants will engage in dedicated mentoring sessions, designed to fit their unique sector and market challenges and guide them in developing resilient business models.

About the Empowering Entrepreneurship Initiative: COVID-19-Relief Programmes & COVID-19- Relief Programmes for Tourism

The Empowering Entrepreneurship Initiative was developed by enpact e.V. The COVID-19 Relief Programmes are funded by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH on behalf of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). enpact implements the programmes and coordinates the implementation with the Strategic Partnership Technology in Africa (SPTA). The tourism programme is implemented by enpact together with TUI Care Foundation.