What Kenya Gained from the Global Entrepreneurship Summit

These are the goodies that the Global Entrepreneurship Summit brought to Kenya and how they are going to benefit Kenya and Africa as a whole.

The Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) has agreed to provide up to $200 million for Equity Bank Group’s lending of $450 million in foreign currency, and the lion’s share has been channeled to the youth and women, especially those established in small and medium enterprises over the next five years. This will help young entrepreneurs, both men and women to economically grow themselves.

Overseas Private Investment Corporation also signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to fully explore OPIC financing with $100 million in Goldman Sachs to benefit 10,000 women and the International Finance Corporation’s Women Entrepreneurs Opportunity Facility, extending debt investments to help support financial institutions supporting women-owned small and medium enterprises worldwide. This is also aimed at equipping women economically and help in liberating the world from poverty.

Additionally, OPIC announced the Portfolio for Impact program, a two year, $50 million pilot program that will support smaller earlier stage companies that generate positive social impact. The first three commitments under this program support companies focused on expanding their operations in Sub-Saharan Africa. It is believed that this program will help uplift Africa and her young entrepreneurs to industrialize.

USAID on the other hand will provide a $25 million Loan Portfolio Guarantee to support Deutsche Bank’s newly launched $50 million Essential Capital Consortium (ECC) Fund, a debt fund focused on lending to social enterprises targeting the financial services, energy, and health sectors around the world, including sub-Saharan Africa. Sub-Saharan Africa means that Kenya, given the fact that it was also the host nation is widely included.

The Department of State’s successful Global Innovation through Science and Technology GIST Initiative will launch Africa-focused GIST TechConnect, GIST Startup Boot Camps, and GIST STEM Women’s Village Workshops to train, mentor, and connect more than 10,000 young African science and technology entrepreneurs, with a focus on women, by July 2016. .

During the Global Entrepreneurship Summit, President Obama also called upon the private sector to lend their support to entrepreneurs around the world through capital mentorship, training, and partnerships.

At the Global Entrepreneurship Summit 2015, private sector companies around the world committed to train and mentor over 1 million burgeoning entrepreneurs and pledged nearly $700 million of capital to the next generation of entrepreneurs.

Over the next three years, Chase Bank Kenya will lend over $580 million to entrepreneurs with small and medium enterprises, with a focus on youth and women, ensuring that formal credit lines can be extended to entrepreneurs who would otherwise not have access to formal financing.

Village Capital is announcing $13.2 million to supporting entrepreneurs at the critical seed-funding stage who are solving major problems in society. VilCap Investment anticipates that over the life of the fund, 25 entrepreneurs in Kenya will receive critical seed-stage support.