Improve management skills
and strengthen companies

An economy supported by informal companies

Small and medium-sized companies (SMEs) occupy an important place in Senegal's economy: they represent 90 per cent of all companies in the country and provide around 42 per cent of jobs in the primary economic sector.

However, 97 percent of Senegalese SMEs are informal. As a result, they are often unstructured, vulnerable to market changes and their prospects are often uncertain. In most cases, these weaknesses lead to a sharp slowdown in their growth and, in challenging times, to their faster disappearance.

To strengthen the resilience of Senegalese SMEs and enable them to fulfil their role as economic drivers, Invest for Jobs supports the Senegalese agency for the development and mentoring of small and medium companies (ADEPME) in implementing the 'SME Business Training and Coaching Loop'.

This training programme is designed to help entrepreneurs who run small and medium-sized companies to expand their skills. This should enable them to increase the competitiveness of their companies, create jobs and improve the income of their employees.

The project has selected 600 Senegalese companies to receive six months of training, coaching and support in accessing finance. The aim is for the companies to structure themselves better, improve their management and increase their performance.

Training of 600 Senegalese SMEs

The SME Business Training and Coaching Loop was developed by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) in Sierra Leone in 2014 and has since been implemented in other African countries such as Benin and Malawi.

It aims to strengthen the entrepreneurial skills of existing SMEs, create jobs and increase income. In doing so, it starts with the managing directors and helps them to reflect on and develop their management skills and entrepreneurial attitudes. In this way, the entrepreneurs gain a perfect knowledge of their companies, their opportunities and develop a clear view of their future.

In 2020, together with ADEPME, the SME Business Training and Coaching Loop was also introduced in Senegal. In a first step, 30 business coaches were trained. In a second step, a total of 600 SMEs from the regions of Dakar, Thiès, Kaolack, Saint Louis and Ziguinchor were selected whose managing directors will be trained as part of the SME Loop. Each business coach is in charge of 20 of the companies, which are active in agriculture, the food industry and information and communication technologies.

Create 1,200 jobs

The project aims to strengthen 600 Senegalese SMEs in the areas of management, marketing, formalisation and organisational development by the end of 2022. Thanks to the support of Invest for Jobs, the SME Loop is also expected to create two jobs per accompanied SME in the long term, so a total of 1. 200 new jobs.

From October 2020 to March 2021, the first half of the selected companies were trained. Training for the remaining 300 SMEs started in May 2022. By February 2023, around 170 jobs have already been created. Around 630 people, 70% of them women, now have a better income or work under better conditions. About 170 companies have also seen an improvement in their order volume, turnover or clientele.

The Senegalese agency for the development and support of small and medium-sized companies (ADEPME) is supported by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH as part of the Special Initiative "Decent Work for a Just Transition" on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).