Village Capital impact story

Identifying opportunities for exponential impact within rural impacting enterprises

Rural businesses face challenges due to lack of infrastructure and limited access to finance and markets. Many rural entrepreneurs in sub-Saharan Africa are locked out of existing entrepreneur support interventions due to limited education, skills, lack of knowledge, and cultural and social barriers.

ESOs offer supports ranging from business planning and modelling to investment readiness, helping rural entrepreneurs overcome barriers. However, ESOs can be siloed, and often need business supports themselves.

Credit: Natalia Jidovanu

In 2022, Village Capital and Small Foundation launched research to identify gaps, synergies, and opportunities within the rural impacting enterprise (RIE) ecosystem in sub-Saharan Africa. 20 African ESOs were selected to participate in the research from 188 applications.

Using data from the applicants, Village Capital put together a snapshot of the RIE ecosystem, learning:

• Most ESOs operate with small budgets

• East Africa has the leading number of ESOs supporting RIEs

• ESOs are not only focusing on rural enterprises

• Most rural enterprises are in the agricultural sector

• ESOs are more focused on developing hard skills

• Most ESOs are donor funded and grant-reliant

Findings from Village Capital’s ongoing engagement with the ESOs will inform the ecosystem on the nature of their work and how to most effectively support them.

This impact story is drawn from Village Capital’s blog, where you can learn more about the project.