Grant is provided under the Black Private Enterprise Development Project to Informal Business Training Trust (IBTT) to establish two business training and development centers to provide informal sector entrepreneurs in South Africa with business management training and follow-up counseling and advisory services. The centers will be established in Johannesburg, in the Witwatersrand region, and in Claremont, in the Cape Town metropolitan area. The centers will offer IBTT”s One-Up Business Training Programme (sometimes known as Township MBA), a competency-based learner-directed course which comprises eight modules: using a calculator, investigating the market, purchasing, costing, marketing, business plan and loan requirements, managing weekly cash flow, and stock control. The program is adapted to the varied educational backgrounds of participants, most of whom are severely disadvantaged, and can take up to 100 hours to complete, although the average completion time is 40 hours. Diplomas are presented to those completing all eight modules. It is expected that course will reach 3,600 participants annually (2,400 in Johannesburg and 1,200 in Cape Town). Trainees will have access to mini-loans for working capital through Entrepreneur Growth Trust (EGT), a pilot project established by IBTT in conjunction with Standard Bank. Plans are to use portions of EGT loan reflows to establish a Training Fund that would eventually make IBTT self-sustaining. Funding for EGT, however, falls outside the scope of this project.
