Supporting the Creation and Management of a Caribbean Youth in Agriculture Virtual Business Incubator and Resource Hub

The IICA Delegation in Saint Lucia with financial support of the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA), and in collaboration with the Caribbean Agricultural Forum for Youth (CAFY) is implementing a project that aims to improve access by youth entrepreneurs to information and knowledge products that support their business start-up and successful business management.

The rationale for the project stems from a recognized need for cost-effective mechanisms to support resource-poor youth entrepreneurs in the Caribbean in addressing information asymmetry-related barriers to business start-up. The premise for the action was also validated and endorsed by 35 youth entrepreneurs from CARICOM at the Dialogue 4 Development Youth in Agriculture (YiA) Business Forum held January 20 – 21 in Grenada. In fact, a regional platform for youth entrepreneur learning/equipping and peer-to-peer engagement was one of the first requests made by youth entrepreneurs to agriculture development institutions.   

Having begun in late May 2016, the project is wrapping up its first action of collating information on business start-up and the entrepreneurial ecosystem for the target 13 countries. This input will be used to generate user-friendly resources on doing business in each country that will be made available for free on the Incubator’s platform which will be built later this year. When operational the Virtual Business Incubator will support youth entrepreneurship by providing unique information and knowledge products to simplify business start-up and highlight business opportunities. In addition to creating the platform, the project will seek to create a management team of volunteering entrepreneurs, academics and support agencies to help shape the platform and increase by-in of support service providers across the region.

For more information contact: Brent Theophile (brent.theophile@iica.int)