Kampala — When government of Uganda announced that it had allocated Ush25b for enterprising youth to start up businesses in the FY2011/12, there was massive excitement across the country.

The Youth Entrepreneurship Venture Capital Fund was created to cure unemployment among the youth but the vehicle for its disbursement ended up knocking out those who really needed it.

As a result there was an outcry from the youth who faulted the various requirements needed like the applicant's must be between 21 to 35 years of age with a bank account. It adds that one must possess at least an Ordinary Level certificate with additional certificate of attendance for training in entrepreneurship from an institution approved by the Ministry of Finance. Apparently the banks also required that borrowers must be individuals or companies with valid trading licenses or other legally recognized legal business entities that must have been employing at least four people.

In an earlier interview with Mr. Charles Ocici, the Executive Director of Enterprise Uganda, the body mandated to offer training to prospective entrepreneurs, he said, "You cannot commit large sums of money to people who have not had any form of financial training."

A report in the the online journal for African studies volume 4, Issue 8 says that Uganda has a high number of startups but many of these usually do not live to see their second anniversaries.

It is for this reason that Mr. Engwau Moses Okudu decided to establish a business development center to enable prospective entrepreneurs get business skills and general management.

He told the East African Business Week in an interview last week that the center is looking at imparting the Small and Medium Scale Entrepreneurs with the right knowledge to navigate the turbulent business environment.

"This Business Development Center was created to respond to the need for business skills and management. We are looking at empowering the SMEs because they are the engine of growth of any economy," Engwau said.

He added, "Training is absolutely necessary for people to run business. We have seen in the past how revolving funds didn't generate the desired results because of lack of training."

The center runs an entrepreneurship program three times a year (January, May and August) and lasts 14 weeks and will explore aspects of marketing, finance, human resource management, general operations among others.