NextBillion.net - Development Through Enterprise - Interview with Kurt Hoffman, Director of the Shell Foundation - Comments

investment policy

bunya rashid — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 13:38:03 -0400

what do you have to coment about the incentive regime in uganda and the land policy to investors thanks

Shell Foundation Model in Agriculture MSEs

Lameck kikoka — Thu, 08 Sep 2005 06:26:48 -0400

Most of the SMEs in Sub Saharan Africa and Tanzania in particular are agrarian in nuture and therefore perceived risky by most banks. Is there a possibility of Shell Foundation to support agric. ralated initiatives?

Shell Foundation

_macharia — Thu, 25 Aug 2005 00:10:54 -0400

Dear Al,

This is great work by Shell Foundation, and demonstrates an effective mechanism of reaching real deep in to the BOP market as it were!! As KH says, and Shell has figured it out: the middle $10,000 to $500,000 financing market is where the real market is. A growth of 20% is commendable. I wonder if the newly formed companies are trading in the Ugandan stock Exchange, because that way they would gain access to more capital that would otherwise not have been readily available. Could Shell help in that step. I know that there is a very busy stock exchange in Nairobi, and Kampala. One way of making it happen real big in the BOP is facilitating the effectiveness of these germinal stock markets.

Macharia Waruingi, MD
www.kdnc.org
Development Network

Interview with Kurt Hoffman, Director of the Shell Foundation

Al Hammond — Wed, 24 Aug 2005 10:20:20 -0400

Small and Medium-Size enterprises (SMEs) create most of the jobs in any economy, and they also play a critical role in providing goods and services to low-income communities. But there are very few sources of financing to help SMEs scale. Interest in SME funds is growing, however, so finding successful models is critical. Shell Foundation has piloted and is now scaling just such a successful model. In this and succeeding posts, we ask Shell Foundation’s Kurt Hoffman to explain the model, its impacts, and the potential for scaling. We’d welcome comments from others about the Shell Foundation model, their experience with other models, and other suggestions about catalyzing SME development in BOP markets.