Establishment of the Entrepreneurship Development Committee (EDC) in Kassala State, Sudan

UNIDO started by carrying out consultations and roundtables with the public and private institutions of the local entrepreneurial ecosystem. As a result of this UNIDO established an institution called Entrepreneurship Development Committee, composed by all the main institutions involved. In 2019 the Government of Sudan turned the EDC into a legal independent institution and provided the EDC with regular budget support. The EDC operates through 3 components: I. A 1st stage of sensitization, collection and selection of business ideas carried out through an assessment of entrepreneurial ideas and candidates (‘Pre-selection Component’); II. A 2nd phase of training and coaching of entrepreneurial ideas to be transposed into business plans (‘Non Financial Services Component’); III. A 3rd phase of assessment, selection and financial support to selected business ideas (‘Financial Component’). This phase is preemptive to the accompaniment of the selected business plans to the local financial market. The idea is to create a pipeline of profitable and sustainable business plans to be presented to local banks for financing. Each of the stakeholders involved (university, banks, ministries etc.) provides technical support on each of these steps depending on its technical background. The total financial cost of this initiative (1st year) was 240,000 USD as follows: • 4 staff • 3 subcontracts to 3 institutions for each of the steps enlisted above • 2,000 USD per month for running costs covered by the Government of Sudan. As in-kind contributions: • 1 secretary paid by the EDC Chairman (Ministry of Production and Economic Resources) • 6 members of 6 different institutions participate to regular monthly meetings and assessments. • Office premise made available by the Government of Sudan.