The cornerstone of Indego Africa’s ground-breaking training programs, Business Management & Entrepreneurship (“BM&E”) is tailored specifically for craft-producing cooperatives in Africa to ensure that they can both sustain and scale their commercial and developmental operations. Administered in close coordination with Indego Africa’s Literacy Programs, BM&E diversifies and increases the income of Indego Africa’s partner artisans by facilitating the skills, information, and confidence to engage the local and global markets as business-savvy, independent businesswomen. Classes are conducted regularly at Indego Africa’s partner cooperatives by top students from Indego Africa’s Generation Rwanda Internship Program.
Read more on Indego Africa's blog, Social Enterprising:
"I like recording of finances because before we used to work in a very suspicious way with no recording, no way to know how to get money. Everything is clear now." - Fatuma Nyiramana, 50, weaver at Covanya.
Objectives
Sound Business Management Practices through classes in recordkeeping, transparent payments, banking, governance, customs paperwork, government licensing and effective communication, each cooperative partner community.
Local Market Information through classes in competitor analysis, customer preferences, local pricing, supply chains, budgeting, product presentation.
International Market Information through classes in international pricing, international competitor analysis, profit margins, shipping, negotiation, contracts, marketing trends, product innovation, and quality control.
Outside Economic Activities through classes in markets, unit/fixed/variable costs, pricing, budgeting, logistics, SWOT analysis, market entry, problem solving and logistics strategies, projected profit, and microfinance.
Curriculum
Implementation Plan (available online soon!)
Table of Contents (available online soon!)
Workshops
In addition to its scheduled classes, BM&E includes special workshops to tackle particularly difficult or important topics. Each January, for instance, a team of students and professors from Harvard Business School travel to Rwanda to collaborate with the cooperatives on tackling a variety of projects, including raw materials sourcing and international markets. U.S. lawyers have conducted seminar on microfinance and contracts. Other visiting volunteers have performed skits for the cooperatives on how products make their way from Rwanda to a customer’s home (see video below!)
The cornerstone of Indego Africa’s ground-breaking training programs, Business Management & Entrepreneurship (“BM&E”) is tailored specifically for craft-producing cooperatives in Africa to ensure that they can both sustain and scale their commercial and developmental operations. Administered in close coordination with Indego Africa’s Literacy Programs, BM&E diversifies and increases the income of Indego Africa’s partner artisans by facilitating the skills, information, and confidence to engage the local and global markets as business-savvy, independent businesswomen. Classes are conducted regularly at Indego Africa’s partner cooperatives by top students from Indego Africa’s 
Objectives
