Promoting Entrepreneurship:

AMPE, UNCTAD Solemnize Partnership
By Doh Bertrand Nua in Yaounde

Minister of SMEs, Achille Bassiliken, APME DG& ADG, partners of APME in family photo

The Small and Medium Sized Enterprises Promotion Agency, APME has benefited a consignment of didactic materials from the City of Geneva under the eagis of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, UNCTAD, program.
    The gifts comprising 10 tablets, 1000 manuals, a laptop and some materials to help experts on the ground to properly follow up the implementation of the ‘Youth Entrepreneurial Soft Skills: The Behavioural Approach’ program was handed to the General Manager of APME, Jean Marie Louis Badga during a ceremony that brought together certified trainers, young beneficiaries and APME officials, at the conference hall of the APME in Tsinga, Yaoundé, on Thursday 14 November.
    Handing over the gifts, Phillippe Rudaz, Cameroon representative of UNCTAD, said the donation was to help the APME continue the excellent implementation, follow-up and concretization of the methodological transfer of knowledge through  trainings of youths.
    Rudaz said with actors on the ground like the APME, knowledge and methodology can easily be transformed into a real formation for youth entrepreneurs and diffused in the different regions of the country, in local languages with local entrepreneurs.
    He noted that apart from the donation, the UNCTAD will technically assist government to diffuse experiences of other countries in terms of economic development and the sustainable development goals and put at the disposal of government different agencies at all times in terms of technical and human resources and budget facilitation with value added function of connecting experiences and lessons learnt from other countries.
    On his part, the General Manager of APME, Jean Marie Louis Badga, said the donation of didactic materials is a continuation of an initiative whose operational phase was launched in May 2017 at the International Relations Institute in Yaoundé with sole goal to assist APME source for funds to facilitate the training of youths under the ‘Youth Entrepreneurial Soft Skills: The Behavioral Approach’ program. 

    He said the materials will go a long way to assist the agency continue with what they have done so far in terms of implementing the program which has enabled them to train many youths in colleges, university and community levels.
    Badga said the donation which is the second the agency is benefiting comes after that of May 2018 that was handed thanks to Fiorina Mugione, UNCTAD representative through the Africa 21 Association after projects done with satisfactory feedback gotten on how the materials were adequately used in impacting youths in different towns and communities. 
    He underscored that the donations will help APME to further widen her scope to different localities in terms of improving, training and reducing complications that prevent youths from creating enterprises. He lauded the massive presence of certified trainers, young beneficiaries and other actors in the sector which to him indicates their desire to see growth of entrepreneurial skills promoted among youths through their fruitful contributions.
    The event was presided over by the Minister of Small and Medium Sized Enterprises, Social Economy and Handicraft, Achille Bassilekin III, who, saluted the donors and the contributions APME is making in the domain of empowering youths with entrepreneurial skills which falls within President Biya’s 2035 emergence plan.