Entrepreneurship SME

SME Support Centre has launched a platform that features brands that are “Made in Africa.”

Prowess

The SME Support Centre (SSC) has launched the “SME Blue Pages,” a Pan-African access to a market program that intends to exhibit all “Made in Africa brands” and, in turn, demonstrate Africa’s innovation potential to the rest of the world.

The SME Support Centre is leading the effort, which is backed by major strategic partners such as the African Union and the Pan-African Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PACCI).

SSC also wants to collaborate with a number of digital businesses to provide aggregated trade services such as logistics, advertising, and payments at a low cost by utilizing economies of scale. SSC is an African aggregator of SMEs that aims to scale up Africa’s entrepreneurial ecosystem through simple, localized, and long-term solutions.  

Continued benefit from SME Support Centre’s projects

Over 16,000 SMEs from throughout Africa have benefited from the SME Support Centre’s many projects and programs over the last three years.

According to Linda Onyango, CEO of the SME Support Centre, the SME Blue Pages, overcomes these issues by offering worldwide brand visibility and utilizing economies of scale to deliver aggregated services like shipping and advertising.

“The SME Blue Pages is a timely initiative that augments our role in enhancing trade and markets initiatives for African businesses. Together with SSC we will work with our regional economic blocs to get the African SMEs to enroll to the platform.”

SME Blue Pages conducted a survey to analyze the top three (3) access to market challenges facing SMEs in Africa, and all SMEs unanimously stated that they were brand visibility, cost of advertising, and logistics. This is a pan-African ecosystem initiative, and are calling on various partners, including other technology startups, to join.

“The SME Blue Pages is a timely initiative that augments our role in enhancing trade and markets initiatives for African businesses. Together with SSC we will work with our regional economic blocs to get the African SMEs to enroll to the platform.”

According to PACC, the Pan-African Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s (PACCI) goal is to encourage trade and market activities for African enterprises, and the SME Blue Pages program fits into that mandate. We’ll also work with local chambers of commerce to encourage their African SMEs to join the platform.