PSFU launches national sensitization of business development standards

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The Private Sector Foundation Uganda in partnership with Mastercard Foundation, is implementing the “Enhancing Lead Firm Structure (LFS) for Youth Employment” project.

One of the transformative interventions in this project is addressing the challenges of poor quality of Business Development Services (BDS) and the high price demanded for those services by promoting the development of new quality standards for BDS, their adoption by providers as well as training the providers to address the supply challenges, particularly for specialized areas.

To support the development of new quality standards, the African Management Institute (AMI) has been engaged to provide practical and accessible learning and development solutions to African businesses and professionals working with the technical working group, which is composed of key industry experts, Key government officials and representatives from the entrepreneurship support organisations.

Francis Kisirinya, the chief membership officer at PSFU said, ‘’Every stakeholder has a distinct role that is essential to achieve our common objective which is enterprise development. Our core mandate is to ensure continuous transformation of the economy through the promotion and development sustainable and successful enterprises that are able to lead to economic growth and wealth creation.’’

He added, ‘’The BDS system is characterized by various constraints that limit its potential to generate business growth. PSFU through the infrastructure project in partnership with the Mastercard Foundation decided to contribute to the process of streamlining BDS services.’’

Johnson Abitekaniza, the Assistant Commissioner MSME, Ministry of Trade Industries and Cooperatives said, ‘’We are here today to encourage business support service providers who are out there to start registering for the training that will come after the registration.”

He added: “The sensitization will help us educate and make sure that the public is very much aware of these standards and what they mean to be able to participate. We believe that through this, the service providers will be motivated to join and be trained so that they are better BDS service providers than they are now.”