Youth fund still in the woods

101 youth projects being approved and over 2 000 submissions still awaiting visiting as of end of February.
Over 4 000 project proposals have since been submitted and already over 2 000 applications have been announced unsuccessful and have been recommended for capacity building. Clearly something is not adding up here! The pace at which proposals are being processed seems to be painfully very slow! The question lingers, is it CABS who are not taking into account the special considerations involved when handling proposals of young people or that the business proposals being submitted are just not bankable in the simple sense of a sound document?

The Ministry of Youth Development, Indigenisation and Empowerment have already done the ground work and paved way for the broad based empowerment of any young person who dares to apply. The opportunity now lays before young people to take the initiative and become entrepreneurs in their own right. On the other hand it is also an opportunity for Old Mutual and CABS to take part in the empowerment of young indigenous Zimbabweans.

CABS as an institution are not known for serving the youth constituency and they have never been involved in a project of this nature and magnitude before, hence they maybe genuinely still trying to adjust to the overwhelming responses they are receiving as the applications are coming in. I am also persuaded to point out that the reason why delays in approving and processing the applications may be as a result of an understaffed department that may be failing to cope up with the incoming applications.
Whatever the case might be, I believe it is high time the decision-makers both at CABS and Old Mutual make a decision that speeds up the process of loan disbursement to youths. It is time CABS deliberately speed up efforts to compliment Government by ensuring that what was agreed upon regarding the Youth Fund is prioritised and implemented with speed.

Having a discussion with Taurai Bhatasara the Youth Fund focal person at Zimbabwe Youth Council, he stressed the need for CABS to speed up the process of disbursing loans and to immediately begin to implement the capacity building programme that has already been allocated funding to a tune of US$1 million. On the other hand as far as the number of loans approved are concerned, we may spend the whole year finger pointing on what CABS may be doing wrong or not doing good enough but I think to a certain extent it is also up to us young people to step up, become organised and be proactive. It has been my observation that the average young person doesn’t know how to put together an idea down on paper.

Generally people struggle with paper work and I think it’s more true to youths than any other age group. We need to overcome this spirit and become organised young professionals who have developed a clear sense of who they are and what they want.

Now more than ever, young people need to embrace the idea that we don’t need to hoop-jump to get to where we need to be, that free internships and going to university is not a quick fix, and don’t ensure a job at the end of the day. But that even with the unavailability of employment more successful entrepreneurs can be born from a young generation such as ours.

As we eye funding we need to master the art of putting our ideas on paper and some of the critical points we need to remember when writing a business proposal is that a business proposal is a written bid by a venture capitalist to a prospective investor. Business proposals are often a key step in the complex transaction process especially whenever a potential investor considers more than just the value of the business. a.