High Flyers Youth Entrepreneurship Programme

The High Flyers Youth Entrepreneurship Programme was YBI’s regional programme, supported by the Argidius Foundation and the Government of Uganda, to enable underserved youth in Uganda to scale sustainable businesses, creating jobs and strengthening local communities.

Programme Overview

To address the issues of youth unemployment and low rates of business survival and growth in Uganda, the ‘High Flyers’ Youth Entrepreneurship Programme provided young high-potential entrepreneurs with financial and non-financial support, including enterprise training (focused on access to markets, value addition and value chain integrations), ongoing mentoring support, access to finance and additional business development support. In addition to this, the programme helped these entrepreneurs increase their income and generate new paid jobs.

Programme Structure

• Design and implementation of country-level projects: the aim of each project was to develop the High Flyers programme, to accelerate and enhance young people’s successful transition from micro-enterprises to small businesses and establish a secure pathway to growth from early stages;
• Tailored capacity development for implementing organisations: technical assistance in the form of operational and methodological support and/or organisational support provided by YBI;
• Knowledge management and communications: developed an active African regional community of practice to directly inform and improve programme delivery activities and build knowledge and skills.

Services Provided 

• Training;
• Mentoring;
• Access to finance;
• Capacity development;
• Other business development support. 

Programme Impact

The programme has:

• Supported 1,470 young entrepreneurs with over 400 assigned mentors
• Helped 176 MSMEs to mobilize finance in 2021
• Enabled participating MSMEs to generate 16% average year-on-year growth in revenue