Young Entrepreneurs urged to use country’s challenges as opportunity for their business ideas

By Chisomo Phiri

A call has gone to young Malawian entrepreneurs to start taking various challenges facing the country, including the scarcity of forex, as an opportunity to come up with products that can attract the international market.

This is according to United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) resident representative Fenella Frost who was launching the Growth Accelerator Cohort 7 and 8 agriculture special window in Lilongwe on Thursday.

“We know there’s a foreign exchange crisis here in Malawi, but that’s an opportunity for young Malawian entrepreneurs to look at the market and say, what could we produce here in Malawi and export into the international market to earn us the much needed forex, ” said Frost.

Norwegian ambassador Ingrid Marie Mikelsen said it was exciting to see most of the entrepreneurs that have benefited from the programme thriving.

On his part, Growth Accelerator Malawi Programme Manager Tambulani Chunga called on entrepreneurs in various sectors including agriculture to apply, saying they are targeting to recruite about 22 ventures in the two new cohorts.

The Growth Accelerator (GA) is a business acceleration programme for youthful-led high-impact post-revenue businesses looking to grow and scale.

The programme supports entrepreneurs with up to K40 million in co-financing, mentorship and technical assistance.