11 March 2016. Gent, Belgium. PAEPARD meeting with a delegation of Entrepreneurs for Entrepreneurs. This organisation relates directly agribusiness initiatives with Belgian (SME) entrepreneurs.

1. Belgian entrepreneurs
make aid unnecessary
Entrepreneurship creates dynamism in the community and promotes business
growth. Many people have had enough of the poverty in the South. They want a
success story and they want to see progress. The Belgian association Ondernemers
voor Ondernemers (Entrepreneurs for Entrepreneurs) is producing impressive
results in the South.
More than making a profit
Many entrepreneurs nowadays also want to
fulfill a social function. Ondernemers voor
Ondernemers (Entrepreneurs for Entrepreneurs)
channels those entrepreneurs’ desire for action
- with dazzling results in Africa, Asia and Latin
America. Entrepreneurs for Entrepreneurs has
three ‘products’ for the purpose in its portfolio:
projects for business-oriented NGOs, direct
investments in companies in the South, and
exchanges of expertise.
Use what works
In recent decades NGOs have achieved a great
deal in a variety of fields: health, education,
hygiene, agriculture... Anyone who makes a
field visit now - to Ethiopia, for instance – will
see massive progress in comparison with the
situation thirty years ago. And the NGOs have
made a major contribution to that progress.
Entrepreneurs for Entrepreneurs draws on
the expertise of several NGOs and collaborates
with them in business-oriented projects. At the
moment 107 Belgian companies are supporting
NGO projects that provide training, launch local
businesses and arrange microfinancing. In 2012
they provided support worth over 700,000 euros.
If you choose this formula, you can use the
local knowledge and experience that the NGOs
selected by Entrepreneurs for Entrepreneurs
possess in particular regions. That maximizes
your project’s chance of success.
Entrepreneurs for Entrepreneurs, a
network of more than 135 companies
committed to socially responsible
investment in the South.
Investing directly in local businesses
At the moment Entrepreneurs for Entrepreneurs
is testing five projects in which enterprising
people from Belgium are giving entrepreneurs
in the South a helping hand. Together they
are developing local economic activities with a
socially responsible ethos.
The economy in the South is based to a large
extent on small local businesses, but with
our help small businesses can become big.
Every top company once began as a small one.
Entrepreneurs for Entrepreneurs is seeing that
the test projects are creating a lot of employment
and developing a dynamism that rubs off onto
many people. With this formula you can choose
to take a stake in the local entrepreneur’s equity,
or lend start-up capital to the new business. In
both cases you recover your money with interest
or dividends. You make it possible for a business
to start up in the South, and who knows, you
may be financing the new Bill Gates, Richard
Branson or Warren Buffet!
Exchanging expertise
Entrepreneurs have a better chance of succeeding
if they have the right knowledge. That is why
Entrepreneurs for Entrepreneurs also promotes
exchanges of expertise between business from
the North and the South. This genuinely is
an exchange, because simply transplanting
knowledge about doing business in Belgium to
other parts of the world does not work. You have
to adapt to the local circumstances. Because there
is a need for it, Entrepreneurs for Entrepreneurs
wants to expand this third service sensitively,
possibly in collaboration with others. Choosing
this formula often has a very positive effect on
your staff’s motivation. Your HR policy takes a
giant leap forward and your company’s vitality
gets a boost too.
New vitality
As of September 2012, Entrepreneurs for
Entrepreneurs is the new name for the Corporate
Funding Programme, which was set up in 2001
under the chairmanship of Fons Verplaetse, the
former Governor of the National Bank. The new
namecreatesgreaterclarityaboutwhodoeswhat.
At the moment Entrepreneurs for Entrepreneurs
comprises a network of 107 large and smaller
companies. The association assists companies
with the choice of projects and sees to it that the
staff are involved in the projects. Entrepreneurs
for Entrepreneurs organizes familiarization trips
in which the participants discover a country from
the inside. And membership of Entrepreneurs for
Entrepreneurs is not just confined to companies
and entrepreneurs; all enterprising people, all
those who really want to change something in
the South, are welcome.
FotoIsabelCorthier
More information: www.ondernemersvoorondernemers.be or contact Inge Overmeer: inge@ondernemersvoorondernemers.be – 016/33 27 21