81299222-VB Support the Incubator/Accelerator Facility at NIRDA for the wood sector in Rwanda

The Incubator / Accelerator Facility (IAF) for the Rwandan wood sector is a joint project of NIRDA and GIZ. The main objective of the IAF is to improve the competitiveness of start-ups and companies in the wood value chain. The Incubator program is a 7 to 8 months program that targets early-stage start-ups with less than 12 months of business operations to increase their competitiveness within the wood processing sector as well as established entrepreneurs who seek to diversify into the wood sector for the first time. The Accelerator program is a 7 to 8 months program that targets entrepreneurs, business owners, and management teams for companies in more mature micro, small, medium-sized, or large enterprises and cooperatives in the wood sector. The scope of this project is to strengthen the IAF as a tool to move the Rwandan wood sector towards higher capacity (esp., on the SME management level), innovativeness (products, processes, and finance) as well as via a feedback mechanism to the market and government institutions. The IAF must be able to identify ways and means to develop, improve and provide services to beneficiaries, such that the quality of entrepreneurs, management teams and start-ups are improved, thereby improving the business fundamentals of entrepreneurs and management teams and start-ups seeking finance and investment (locally, regionally and internationally). While the initial years of IAF operations have been and will be subsidized through the SD4T module, the ultimate goal is to progressively make the facility self-sustained in order to be able to continue to provide services as business catalyst to the Rwandan wood sector.