New network set to help entrepreneurs in the Caribbean

For entrepreneurs struggling to overcome the many hurdles associated with starting up a business and keeping it afloat, help is at hand.

A network has been launched in the Caribbean to help businesses in the region through business incubation support, by providing them with training, access to business facilities and technical assistance.

This network, known as the Caribbean Business Incubation Association (CBIA), was established through technical and financial support given by the Commonwealth Secretariat, the European Commission and the World Bank’s Information for Development Programme (infoDev).

The CBIA was launched in October 2009 at the third infoDev Global Forum on Innovation and Entrepreneurship, held in Florianopolis, Brazil, and is the sixth regional business incubation network across the world.

Entrepreneurs and innovative small businesses from Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, Jamaica, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, and Montserrat will benefit through this network.

“The Commonwealth Secretariat has played a catalytic role in the creation of this initiative in partnership with other development partners,” said Ram Venuprasad, the Secretariat’s Enterprise Development Adviser. He added: “Through our various interventions we have put in place necessary building blocks that will foster business incubation across the Caribbean.”

The CBIA will seek to propagate business incubation, which is still in its infancy, across the Caribbean. This would be done through a series of enabling and operating initiatives, including policy implementation for business incubation in the region, development of shared infrastructure, and training and capacity-building interventions.

“We see this network as one of the most important tools for encouraging economic development through entrepreneurship in the region,” said Felix Lewis, President of CBIA and general manager of the Centre for Enterprise Development, based in St Vincent and the Grenadines, where the network is presently based.

The CBIA follows a feasibility study on promoting business incubation in the Eastern Caribbean, which was completed by the Secretariat earlier this year. After this study, the Secretariat, the European Commission and infoDev organised a regional training programme on business incubation for 45 participants from 15 Caribbean countries – including 13 Commonwealth member states.

Secretariat Links:

• Economic Development
• Country Profile: St Vincent and the Grenadines