The African Centre for Development Finance (ACDF) of the USB facilitated a one-week workshop for business counsellors and trainers on the Fundamentals of Small Enterprise Development Company (SEDCO) in Eswatini (formerly known as Swaziland). The workshop was sponsored by the Capacity Strengthening & Technical Corporation Project (CSTCP), a European Union funded project developed as a support project.

The ACDF is a strategic initiative of USB set up to address the development challenges of the continent at large, especially in the field of development finance and financial inclusiveness.

Delegates to the workshop included senior managers, supervisors, business trainers and business counsellors from SEDCO. The workshop was facilitated by Dr Sola Oduwole, the Centre’s coordinator.

The main objective of the workshop was to provide participants with the tools and techniques on preparing a business plan from an adaptable template, conducting feasibility studies, and assessing the feasibility and overall health of a business for small enterprises. They were imparted with the knowledge of using the new business opportunities in an inspiring, stimulating and accelerate way to promote economic development, youth employment and emancipation of rural economy.

The second step was to identify and study trends related with challenges of growth opportunities ecosystems, improve competitiveness, and apply this knowledge to create innovative solutions. This was illustrated with a real time visit to an emerging entrepreneur in the niche market of producing iron door and window frames. At the site visit to ACERO Steel Frames (PTY), one of the incubated enterprises of SEDCO in Eswatini, a situational analysis on the performance of this enterprise was conducted. The Managing Director Ernest Mdluli benefited immensely from the wealth of freshly imparted knowledge of the participant of SEDCO.

The Chief Executive Officer of SEDCO, Dorrington Matiwane, as well as the Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Ministry of Economic Planning and Development, Siboniso Nkambule, were present at the closing ceremony as well the presentation of letters of participation to the participants.

Overall, the participants achieved greater intellectual development and a deeper knowledge of enterprise problem-solving capacities, critical thinking, and abilities to understand complexity and ambiguity of small-Scale enterprise development process.