THE BOMA PRIZE FOR AFRICA
The goal of the Boma Prize is to promote empathy, education and empowerment on the African Continent.
Businesses, Entrepreneurs, and Individuals access adequate funding, business resources, and networks.
Welcome to the first edition of the Boma Prize competition to ensure the growth and development of Africa. In this first edition, we will be dealing with the challenges of growing Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SME) in Africa.
The Boma Prize for Africa was recently launched by Boma Consult LLC. The initiative aims to promote business education, youth empowerment, and SMEs growth across the African Continent. The Boma Prize provides a platform for small business owners, startups, and young entrepreneurs to bring their dreams to fruition through in-person pitch contest.
Why Africa?
According to UNEP, Africa is rich in natural resources ranging from arable land, water, oil, natural gas, minerals, forests and wildlife. The continent holds a huge proportion of the world’s natural resources, both renewables and non-renewables.
Africa is home to some 30 percent of the world’s mineral reserves, eight percent of the world’s natural Gas and 12 per cent of the world’s oil reserves. The continent has 40 percent of the world’s gold and up to 90 percent of its chromium and platinum. The largest reserves of cobalt, diamonds, platinum and uranium in the world are in Africa. It holds 65 per cent of the world’s arable land and ten percent of the planet’s internal renewable fresh water source.
As an organization, we don’t have the power or jurisdiction to interfer with government policies. However, we can appeal to the conscience of everyone who has benefited from the resources in Africa.
We can collectively offer support to projects that directly impact the lives of the people who endure the pain and exploitation of the African Continent.
Why SMEs?
SMEs are the lifeblood of the African economy. This is because SMEs are generating work opportunities, income and wealth creation and thereby encouraging poverty eradication. According to the World Bank, SMEs account for 60% of jobs in Africa. They account for 95% of all registered businesses and contributes about 50% of the total GDP of Sub-Saharan countries (World Economic Forum, 2023)
The Problem
As the market dynamics are changing especially with the advent of Covid 19, SMEs continue to face a lot of challenges. These include rising cost of doing business by 63%, rising cost of goods and services by 75%, reduction in staff retention by 42%, difficulty in accessing finances, low training and up-skilling of staff and low digitalization of business. (Master Card, 2023)
Our Solution
This challenge is targeted at finding ways to eradicate the challenges facing SMEs in Africa. This will directly contribute to the United Nations goal of poverty eradication by 2030. We can achieve this, by amassing adequate support from like minded people like you, as we work together to inspire potentials in Africa to think of new innovative ways of doing business in Africa and bridging the gap with Africa and the rest of the world.
The Competition
The 2024 Boma Prize for Africa has officially kicked off and we invite you to begin the process of competing by filling out the application form.
The Boma Prize for Africa empowers small businesses, startups, and entrepreneurs across the African continent to scale their innovative startups for real impact. Participants join an exclusive global community of student entrepreneurs, mentors, and industry experts as they work to earn a spot in our Global Finals where finalists compete for over $20,000 US Dollars in funding and valued added services to bring their big ideas to life.
Whether you’re looking to take your existing startup to the next level or are inspired to build a brand-new business, we invite you to participate.
2024 Application for the Boma Prize for Africa is Now Open
Our year-long competition challenges small businesses, entrepreneurs, and startups to show the viability and scalability of their businesses.