Ethiopian Business
Development Services (BDS) Network
Contact:
info@bds-ethiopia.net
- Tel. 00251-1-62.61.34
-
Addis Ababa
BDS - Newsletter
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No. 3 - July 2005
For details on our
demand-driven needs
assessment and action plan approach please download the
BDS-Toolkit under
What is "demand-driven"?
Everybody is speaking about demand-driven Business Development Services (BDS). But nobody gives you a concrete idea about it talking only in platitudes...
 |
Can you guess who is demand-driven? Yes, the one at the right side . Why? He has big ears to listen and big eyes to observe and a small mouth to be silent while the left one only has a big mouth and doesn't hear and see anything.. |
Demand-driven BDS approach is to visit the business operator and ask him about his problems and needs. The business owner himself will identify his main problems and proposals for solutions (demand-driven needs assessment). Only on the basis of the business owner's opinion we will add our remarks, discuss and negotiate self-help activities by the owner himself and support-activities of service providers (we don't like "experts" who already know everything before they spoke with the business owner). Then an action plan based on the common agreement will be drawn in order to go into concrete actions like support for trade fair participation, assist the owner for intervention to the tax authority, organize further technical training, draw up a business plan for access to finance, intervene to the city administration for better premises, give information on equipment supply or give advice for accounting, bookkeeping and management. The concrete support action depends on the business owner's expressed demand (see above).
Detailed list of
industrial zones see on
www.bds-ethiopia.net/
sector-library
Industrial Zones Development in Addis Ababa
Addis Ababa City Administration has started to create more than 50 industrial zones in the sub-cities that are organized by clustering enterprises by business activity. Clusters of of wood and metal enterprises have been created. Food processing, textile and garment clusters are on the way. The industrial zones have a capacity to accomodate more than 60,000 operators with a total area of 475,000 m2.
The BDS Network is to be involved by assigning business advisors to the industrial zones supporting enterprises in the clusters and providing services like support to business associations, management of common tasks related to the industrial zone administration like security, electricity costs, bookkeeping and link business owners to other service providers for marketing, equipment supply, management and other promotion activities.
Detailed activity reports on the last BDS cycle, entre-preneurship trainings provided, capacity building of network members and networking activities see
www.bds-ethiopia.net/
documents.html
(Monitoring and
Evaluation chapter)
Minutes of the last national meeting of Business advisors (BDS facilitators)
The ultimate purpose of the workshop was to share experiences gained during the implementation of the 4th BDS Cycle in 3 regional states. 501 facilitators were deployed in a 6-month BDS cycle by partner organizations to support 4,783 business owners in their respective regions. The majority of the enterprises are engaged in the construction, textile, garment and food sub-sectors.
The next 6-month BDS cycle from July 2005 to December 2005 will focus on sectors (textile, leather, food, construction), on support of the Chambers of Commerce (15 facilitators will be assigned for the Gonder, Bahir Dar, Dessie, Debre Berhan and Mekelle city chambers) on the support for start-ups (15 facilitators of the Addis sub-cities will support 180 unemployed graduates for business creation) and support to the industrial zones (facilitators will be assigned to support the enterprises in the clusters).
Donor Network Webpage
New Webpage of the Donor Community in Ethiopia
The Development Assistant Group (DAG) is the Network of the Donor Community in Ethiopia comprised of more than 40 member organisations. The DAG Thematic Working Group members have also their own sub-pages on this site. Thematic working groups are: Education, Gender equality, Governance, Private Sector Development, Public Finance Management.
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