FIFTY upcoming young and women entrepreneurs engaged in agri-business activities have undergone training on how to improve their emerging projects.

In addition to the six-month training, they got the opportunity to pitch their projects before a panel of representatives of financial institutions and former beneficiaries of similar programmes.

The project was aimed at improving their ability to source funding for their projects and was jointly coordinated and rolled out by the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) and Tanzania’s National Economic Empowerment Council (NEEC), with financial support from the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa (BADEA).

UNITAR Project Lead Michael Adalla said at a two-day session marking the end of the training that it was the institution’s hope that the participants would use the training to grow their activities.

“This training started six months ago, with 150 participants from Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. It was being conducted online and we are glad that we have met here today in person to mark the end of the programme,” he said.

He explained that the programme was meant to empower young entrepreneurs to develop bankable projects “so as to link the entrepreneurs with financial institutions as a solution to the capitalization challenges most emerging young businesspersons are facing.”

Representatives from CRDB Bank dealing with agro-financing also attended the session and followed the proceedings, guiding the participants on how to refine their presentations so as to attract financiers.

Adalla said UNITAR would continue to follow the activities of the beneficiaries of the programme after the training.

“We are determined to follow up your activities so as to capture your success stories so as to help you serve as an inspiration to those who did not attend this training. We believe that your experience will be very valuable to many other people,” he said.

Angelamercy Baruti, an alumnus of similar programme dubbed Green Livelihood and financed by Japan, shared her experience at the session.

Noting that she was now engaged in the farming of black soldier flies, which are used as livestock feed calling upon the participants “to focus on what they do for success.

Beatrice Awino, also an alumnus of the programme, urged the participants to come up with good projects “as financiers always place a premium on bankable projects.