Enhanced SMEs Investment & Export Readiness Program

About the program

The USAID-funded ‘Enhanced Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs) Investment and Export Readiness Through a Digital Platform’ program aims to increase the investor, export readiness, and competitiveness of 100 SMEs in nine Southern African countries.

The program leverages the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), a United States Trade Act that significantly enhances market access to the US for qualifying Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries, and is valid until 2025, to drive export trade for the SMEs. Priority industry sectors include Agriculture, Agro-processing, Textiles, and apparel.

The objectives of this new AWIEF program are to:

• Increase exports from the Southern African countries to South Africa.
• Increase exports from all the nine targeted Southern African countries to the United States, leveraging AGOA.
• Support firms seeking specific trade-related technology transfer (e.g. labeling, branding, laboratories).

The program will help strengthen participants’ governance, regulatory compliance, and risk management capabilities.

The 8-week program will be implemented as an online training course through the AWIEF digital platform – the AWIEF Community.

Applicant requirements

• Are you an SME registered and operating in one of these Southern African countries: Angola, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, and Zambia?
• Are you either already exporting or interested in exporting your products to South Africa and/or to the United States leveraging AGOA?
• Are you seeking to raise capital for business expansion and international trade?
• Priority industry sectors: Agriculture, Agro-processing, Textiles, and Apparel.