The bridges.org/IICD Case Study Series on ICT -Enabled Development sets out to illustrate how ICT contributes to development in Africa. The aim of this series is to help ground level initiatives imagine the possibilities of what can happen if they use ICT successfully to overcome development obstacles, and to contribute to the existing body of knowledge on the digital divide.

I. Overview

Initiative: The Foundation of Economic and Business Development (FEBDEV) promotes entrepreneurship education and skills training targeted to the poorest groups in South Africa. It also provides planning, practical and management assistance to micro business start-ups.

NOTE: This case study differs from others in the series in that FEBDEV does not work specifically in the area of ICT development, although it does use ICT in delivering its services. We view FEBDEV's efforts to help grassroots entrepreneurs as an important link in the chain connecting small business development, economic growth, and poverty reduction. And this relates to the digital divide insofar as today's information society requires that even the smallest businesses have some level of information and communications technology (ICT) use integrated in their operations. An entrepreneur who uses ICT appropriately and effectively can run a more efficient business and reach markets that were previously unimaginable, and FEBDEV provides an entry point to business and ICT use that many in the poorest groups would otherwise not have access to. We believe that FEBDEV's efforts to support grassroots entrepreneurship provide the groundwork for a micro business community capable of realising the benefits of ICT use. Further, we suggest that their success can serve as a model for ICT training efforts and community initiatives in general.

Implemented by: FEBDEV is a non-profit Section 21 corporation in South Africa. It is headquartered in the Gauteng Province, and directed by Norma James and Marc Swanepoel. Dorette Steenkamp is the Western Cape Provincial Manager and Joey Reinhardt is the Regional Coordinator for the Northwest and Gauteng Provinces.

Funding or financial model: The organisation is funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID), ABSA, Anglo American Chairman's Fund, De Beers, South African Breweries, Rotary Club Claremont, and many Provincial Departments of Education.

Timeframe: FEBDEV has been in existence for almost 20 years. Since 1996, it has taken a more regional focus, including by establishing local satellite centres.

Local context: Unemployment in South Africa is estimated at 41.5%, according to Global Insight, an international research company. (However, it should be noted that this figure could be lower because many people in the informal sector and agriculture define themselves as "unemployed".) Many of the unemployed dropped out of school prematurely and do not speak English, nor do they have basic business or trade skills. Without these skills, and in an incredibly competitive job environment, it is very difficult for them to succeed. Although South Africa's Further Education and Training (FET) technical colleges help to teach some of these skills, entrepreneurship classes often focus too much on theory and too little on practice, sacrificing applicability and local relevance. They also usually teach in either English or Afrikaans, effectively excluding most members of the poorest groups. Although many development organisations target assistance to existing small businesses, often by bringing in international management or technology consultants, they rarely support micro business creation among the poor and under-educated populace. Further, there is little culture of entrepreneurship among these groups. Most of the unemployed, even if they had a marketable idea for a small business, would not know how to write a business plan, find partners, obtain funding, or sometimes even open a bank account.

The development problem/obstacle addressed: There are very few efforts that do enough to foster entrepreneurship and teach small business skills, and most do not effectively reach the poorest groups, in particular because they are not delivered in a local language that is appropriate to the poorest communities. Nor do they target schools and young people in order to promote an entrepreneurial spirit among the nation's youth.

How the problem is overcome: FEBDEV provides an entry point to micro business opportunities for entrepreneurs from South Africa's poorest communities, and encourages entrepreneurial thinking among the unemployed and young people. It has created an action-learning methodology that engages students in a language-independent learning platform, and applied it in nearly all of South Africa's technical colleges. Action-oriented learning uses programs that do not split the learning process in to theory and practice, but combine the two to create a more stimulating learning experience. FEBDEV use this method to capture the interest of their learners and in doing so differentiates itself from other organisations running business theory courses.

To reach the poor unemployed, FEBDEV has partnered with local officials to create satellite centres that provide affordable skills training and entrepreneurship courses in needy communities. The organisation encourages entrepreneurial activities in these satellite centres by providing start-up funding, office space, business plan support and competitions, professional advice, and online business support agencies. To reach South Africa's youth, FEBDEV's regional facilitators take the entrepreneurship courses and action-learning methodology directly to schools in an effort it calls "Hands-On Enterprise", which facilitates entrepreneurship discussions, events and competitions. FEBDEV also facilitates web-based online peer support and sponsors Market Day competitions to increase its reach into many schools nationally. All FEBDEV initiatives have been couched in strong partnerships with local government, industry, and provincial Departments of Education.

Next steps: FEBDEV Western Cape's future lies in providing innovative and sustainable support solutions for small businesses, and especially micro enterprises. FEBDEV hopes to cement its ideas and serve as a role model for future initiatives in training, so that other organisations may replicate the principles that helped it succeed. In addition, many new types of training can be envisioned, for example ICT skills training targeted towards a particular industry in the small business environment. FEBDEV is seeking a technology partner to help train educators in technology to realise the vision of Hands-On Enterprise. FEBDEV will also continue to expand the number of regional offices under its purview.

Geographical area targeted: South Africa, with regional offices in Gauteng, Western Cape, and Northwest Provinces.

Contact information:
FEBDEV
PO Box 52713, Saxonworld, 2132, South Africa
Tel: +27 (0) 11 442 4400, Fax: +27 (0) 11 442 4761
Eml: febdev@iafrica.com
URL: http://www.febdev.org.za/home.html

FEBDEV Western Cape
Eml: westerncape@febdev.org.za
Tel: +27 (0) 21 709 0040

II. Gauging Real Impact
This section considers whether and how the initiative has made a Real Impact at the ground level by looking through the lens of basic best practice guidelines for successful initiatives. The bridges.org 7 Habits of Highly Effective ICT-Enabled Development Initiatives are used here as a framework to highlight what the initiative has done well.

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective ICT-for-Development Initiatives
1. Implement and disseminate best practice. FEBDEV studied the learning models of the German Technical Corporation's Competency based Economies through Formation of Enterprise (CEFE) and performed research into other educational best practices while forming its own action-learning paradigm. FEBDEV has adopted its action-learning principles in its own management and therefore encourages staff members to cooperate, innovate, take risks, and learn from successes and failures. One of FEBDEV's goals is to be a model for community-based intervention, especially in the area of training and empowerment. It shares best practices with public institutions and FEBDEV Western Cape has open tours of its Noordhoek satellite office.

2. Ensure ownership, get local buy-in, find a champion. Educators are almost uniformly inspired by FEBDEV's learning methodology and experience because it is effective and engaging. Schools seize on the Hands-on Enterprise method as a way of attracting funding from the business community. FEBDEV also makes a concerted effort to involve local leaders. In the Western Cape for example, the Anglo-American Chairman's Trust sponsored the establishment of the regional office and the Provincial Department of Education seconded six staff members for four years to work on the initiative. The City of Cape Town has also been an active supporter of FEBDEV's efforts.

3. Do a needs assessment. FEBDEV Western Cape stays in touch with the needs of the communities where it works with the help of local community members who conduct verbal interviews in the neighbourhoods, collect information, and report back, while at the same time advocating for the work of FEBDEV.

4. Set concrete goals and take small achievable steps. FEBDEV started by targeting Further Education and Training (FET) technical colleges, which already offered entrepreneurship classes, and welcomed their advice. After achieving success with the programme, some of these colleges offered to partner with FEBDEV to create satellite centres that serve local communities. Although it has interacted with educators at nearly 80% of the Western Cape schools, FEBDEV has limited its direct relationships with schools to those that it can serve effectively with its current number of facilitators. Through cycles of success and renewing commitment from public and private institutions, FEBDEV has gradually expanded the programme.

5. Critically evaluate efforts, report back to clients and supporters, and adapt as needed. FEBDEV regularly reviews itself as an organisation and has performed extensive case studies. FEBDEV also allows for employees to take risks on ideas and learn from mistakes as an organisation. When its employees realised they were not seeing the impact they thought possible at local schools, FEBDEV changed its commitment period to a more long-term (three-year) approach. The organisation excels at creating partnerships between the public and private sectors, and has consistently kept and attracted supporters by constant communication, open houses, inclusive meetings, and sharing success and knowledge. The organisation also engages external evaluators on a regular basis to provide critical feedback on projects.

6. Address key external challenges. FEBDEV's graduates in entrepreneurship generally face two challenges: getting investment funding for their business plans, and having appropriate infrastructure to operate their businesses. For investment funding, FEBDEV has established an annual funded business plan competition and enlists the Rotary Club of Claremont to provide venture capital and small grants for micro entrepreneurs. For infrastructure and sustainability, it has partnered with the Rotary Club and plans to build an office park with offices for entrepreneurs as they start employing people. Most political and community obstacles were obviated by FEBDEV's strong relationships with government, educational institutions, and local citizens. FEBDEV has learned to create balanced, engaged, and community-oriented steering committees in order to deliver on the vision of its community centres.

7. Make it sustainable. Once FEBDEV has trained an educator in the action-learning paradigm, most of the investment is done. With minimal support, educators can carry on teaching entrepreneurial ideas. FEBDEV has enlisted government and local businesses in building infrastructure and providing jobs, so that even without FEBDEV, graduates will be guaranteed a steady platform for growth. Although it provides small amounts of capital for start-up micro ventures, it slowly weans each entrepreneur off this funding until he or she is self-sufficient. FEBDEV itself is donor-funded, but it focuses on delivering concrete benefits to communities and people and articulating the value of its programmes for socio-economic development in order to ensure that donors continue to support its work.

III. Lessons Learned

We invited Ms. Dorette Steenkamp, the Western Cape Provincial Manager of FEBDEV, to share her views on FEBDEV's greatest success, the challenges faced, key constraints and dependencies that affect its efforts, opportunities for future improvement, and other lessons learned. This is what she said:

Because FEBDEV has operated on many levels, it has learned lessons in three areas: strategy, training, and school partnerships.

Strategically, FEBDEV faced budgetary constraints that greatly impaired its marketing budget. Although it has a useful product, it cannot get it in front of enough schools, many of which would probably pay a fair price for the kind of lessons it provides. Because of this constraint, FEBDEV's primary vehicle for expansion into new schools has been word of mouth. Secondly, although FEBDEV wanted to expand into newer applications in education, funders were not quick to support forays into uncharted waters. To allay this problem, FEBDEV sponsors research into areas of interest, and uses the product of this research to bootstrap credibility in future funding proposals. Lastly, the strength and breadth of FEBDEV's partnerships cannot be stressed enough. FEBDEV has created a broad and engaged set of stakeholders in government, education, and industry. The strength of this network has paid off in terms of credibility, regulatory ease, and media esteem.

In the field of training, FEBDEV learned early on that using the action-learning methodology would solve a lot of common problems in teaching entrepreneurship. Moreover, by using familiar goods and constructing marketplaces that citizens are familiar with, FEBDEV has simultaneously created a teaching mechanism that is mostly free of language. Business concepts could be taught to non-English speakers, and local entrepreneurs can be created from people who are not classically schooled. English is taught to those who need it for their chosen profession, although it is not necessary for FEBDEV's course methodology. The final problem FEBDEV faced was that most people wanted to simply get a job, rather than being an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurial behaviour has a multiplicative effect, though, because entrepreneurs employ people in local communities, whereas employees support only themselves. Although FEBDEV arranges for internships and a gradual transition into the workplace, it has simultaneously begun to put the entrepreneur on a pedestal. By celebrating entrepreneurial accomplishment and partnering to provide venture capital funding, FEBDEV hopes to encourage a new generation of entrepreneurs in the poorest neighbourhoods of South Africa.

FEBDEV has a great deal of experience with action-oriented school partnerships. In the school system, FEBDEV learned that its facilitators had to be present for an extended amount of time to make an effect, and therefore its newer commitments last for up to three years. In order to increase support for Market Days, a program that has the potential to affect a huge number of schools, FEBDEV has shown that Market Days represents a possibility to augment school fundraising initiatives. By shedding light on this incentive, FEBDEV will both increase its penetration into schools and increase the publicity assigned to its efforts. Additionally, it has learned that educators need more training with ICT in order to facilitate Hands-on-Enterprise's online efforts in peer support and networking. Lastly, in the formation of new community training centres, FEBDEV stresses the need of creating a balanced and focused steering committee very early on, and convening regular meetings to ensure that all members are properly aligned towards the end goal of helping students become entrepreneurs.

IV. The Story

What is the best way to train South Africa's next generation of entrepreneurs? How can we reach the poorest of the poor, and give them the skills to start their own businesses and empower the communities from which they come? Certainly South Africa's Further Education and Training (FETs) technical colleges hoped they could provide the answer to these questions. Although they taught valuable trade and educational skills, a few years ago their entrepreneurship courses were rated the most boring and least useful by students all across the country.

The problem was that entrepreneurship courses were too theoretical and formulaic to hold the attention of the students or the lecturers. The Foundation of Economic and Business Development (FEBDEV) decided it may have the answer: the action-learning methodology. After all, how can you lecture entrepreneurship when it is much more about practice than theory? Dorette Steenkamp, a former lecturer and part-time entrepreneur herself, calls the new way of teaching "a true paradigm shift via intensive focused training." FEBDEV cooperated with technical colleges to change their teaching method from lecture-based to interactive learn-by-doing. Students and teachers both thrived in the new environment, and sensed that the theory had become practical. Ms. Steenkamp was so inspired that she joined FEBDEV and is now the Regional Coordinator Western Cape Provincial Manager.

After its success with technical colleges nationwide, FEBDEV sharpened its focus from nationwide to provincial. This allowed it to develop expertise in the problems that particular South African communities face, as well as to garner support from local organisations, both public and private, which make a difference in communities. FEBDEV developed the Hands-On Enterprise initiative, to bring its vision to the schools by teaching teachers, facilitating entrepreneurship competitions, and inspiring schools and students to participate. Schools are slowly but surely participating in the competitions and Steenkamp envisions its future as the "most amazing vehicle for interaction about school events and entrepreneurial efforts."

Partnering with a local technical college, FEBDEV Western Cape created a satellite training centre next to a needy community. What it learned was surprising: the action-learning methodology was language-independent. Although many of the local citizens had dropped out of school or barely spoke English, they could begin learning basic marketable skills and entrepreneurship right away in the FEBDEV programme. These skills could then be applied in paid industry internships that reinforce concepts with application. FEBDEV measures success in terms of improved quality of life as well as employment. Many graduates report a higher level of self confidence and have done things they would not have imagined before, such as opening a bank account.

Although many graduates go directly to employment after six to twelve months of practical experience, several also become micro entrepreneurs. FEBDEV shepherds these entrepreneurs into the business world by providing help writing business plans, managing orders and fulfilment, and giving them a temporary office. As such they provide an incubating environment for start-up businesses. FEBDEV has instituted a business plan competition to evaluate business ideas in a competitive environment. And it has partnered with the Rotary Club of Claremont to provide venture capital funds and/or small grants to micro entrepreneurs and to build an office park to house those who will employ others. Successful entrepreneurs become local celebrities, flying to Johannesburg for competitions, employing their peers, and selling their goods as far as Europe.

FEBDEV celebrates the entrepreneur, because entrepreneurs will ultimately have a multiplicative effect, taking a citizen from unemployment to employer, transforming the poorest communities in South Africa.

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Author: bridges.org
Date: 14 October 2003

About the bridges.org/IICD Case Study Series on ICT-Enabled Development
This case study series on ICT-enabled development aims to disseminate best practice examples of how information communication technology has been successfully used by ground level initiatives to alleviate poverty. Case studies are an effective tool for examining what works best, what fails, and why. The intention of this series is to share knowledge and catalyse lessons learned about ICT by local originations and the international community. The current focus is on efforts based in Africa.

The case study series is an initiative of the International Institute for Communication and Development (IICD) and bridges.org, two organisations that share the goal of encouraging the effective use of ICT in developing countries. IICD is an independent non-profit foundation, established by the Netherlands Minister for Development Cooperation in 1997 and based in The Hague. Bridges.org is an international non-governmental organisation based in Cape Town, South Africa. This initiative is supported by the Building Digital Opportunities Programme (www.iconnect-online.org), funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID), the Directorate General International Cooperation (DGIS), the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC).