As a Mastercard Foundation #YoungAfricaWorks supported programme, BRIDGES Programme - Ethiopia is working in close collaboration with Ministry of Peace & VSO in a national program to provide TOT trainings in 7 core topics, such as life skills & leadership, and entrepreneurship to young graduates.

As a Mastercard Foundation supported initiative, our BRIDGES Programme - Ethiopia EcoGreen Jobs project has had a successful few months working with Soil & More and AA Solid Waste Management Agency to help young people establish MSEs and create jobs in compost production & solid waste mgmt.

Our #WEDP Technical Assistance extension has officially launched! The Women Entrepreneurship Development TA extension is a 30-month initiative providing TA to 16 MFIs and covers 10 cities in #Ethiopia. The newest cities now included are Axum, Gonder, Dilla, & Assela.

As a Mastercard Foundation supported initiative, BRIDGES Programme - Ethiopia would like to congratulate, Ethiopian Investment Commission (EIC) on the formation of a steering committee targeting employment linkage at #Hawassa Industrial Park. We are proud to be a part of this endeavor & look forward to our work ahead.

#IPDC #Bridge #FC

As a Mastercard Foundation supported initiative implemented by First Consult, BRIDGES Programme - Ethiopia signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Industrial Parks Development Corporation –Ethiopia for a partnership to build competitive IPs which will create decent & fulfilling industrial park jobs via a comprehensive framework.

As a Mastercard Foundation #YoungAfricaWorks initiative, BRIDGES Programme - Ethiopia in joint collaboration with የከተማ ማዕከል launched the first in a series of mindset workshops & hands-on training to enhance the employability of input installation service providers in the construction sector.

Our first session training was delivered by practicing engineers and architects and provided various productivity-enhancing tools to build trainees’ market competitiveness. #youngpeople #Ethiopia First Consult Young Africa Works - Mastercard Foundation

As a Mastercard Foundation supported initiative, BRIDGES Programme - Ethiopia in collaboration w/ ትኩስ of Avenir Technologies and LITHWS Training & Consultancy provided a 2-day mindset, life skills & customer service training for 62 unemployed young people interested in becoming bicycle messengers.

Tikus Delivery is an easy-to-use online food delivery platform with a business model to work with bicycle messengers. #youngpeople trained this week will be Tikus Delivery’s first riders. BRIDGES is supporting ትኩስ to create job opportunities for 1000 young people.

What are the access to finance challenges faced by #MSME/s in #Ethiopia? As a Mastercard Foundation supported initiative implemented by First Consult read our research into these challenges in our recent #A2F demand-side diagnostic study 👉 bit.ly/3deUh6b

As part of Mastercard Foundation #YoungAfricaWorks, our construction intervention concluded a 3-week technical training program delivered by የከተማ ማዕከል to provide young people with relevant construction skills. 150 young people graduated and received their certificates this week.

As Mastercard Foundation, supported initiative James Ethiopia facilitated a loan agreement between Bank of Abyssinia and 4 Microfinance Institutions(MFIs)- Nisir, Dynamic, Harbu & Metemamen which unlocked ETB 600 million for MSMEs using movable collaterals.

The agreement was initiated following National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE’s) directive enforcing the operationalization of moveable collateral registry (MCR/ 001/20 which is expected to unlock finances for more than 10,000 enterprises comprising at least 20,000 young women and men.

What does the ideal MSME support system look like? As a Mastercard Foundation #YoungAfricaWorks supported initiative implemented by First Consult please read our research answering the question👉firstconsultet.us17.list-manage.com/track/click?u=…

As a Mastercard Foundation #YoungAfricaWorks initiative implemented by First Consult We’ve launched a job-creation and tourist-site-development project with Oromia Tourism Commission.The aim is to support 3000+ jobs in 8 selected tourist destinations in Oromia.

Making enterprises more competitive Abraha Hagos* demonstrates the quality of a block manufactured with their new machinery (which we collaborated with them to acquire) vs one produced using their old methods (manual).

What are the building blocks of job-creation? We believe making enterprises more competitive is one of them. It makes enterprises hire more & offer better working conditions. We worked with Zufan's block manufacturing enterprise to do just that. Read:firstconsultet.com/main/single_bl…

Big day for SMEs! Awash Bank signs ETB 1.5 billion loan agreement with 9 MFIs for MSME lending with relaxed collateral conditions. This bank-MFI partnership forged through our technical assistance makes Awash one of the 1st banks to loan to MFIs at this scale.

We are supporting the government of Ethiopia through የሥራና ክህሎት ሚኒስቴር / Ministry of Labor and Skills to establish a national credit guarantee scheme (CGS). The proposed CGS envisions a public-private independent institution supervised by National Bank of Ethiopia to encourage MSME lending. More: shorturl.at/adeY5