K-Startup Support Transferred to Uganda, Revitalizing Youth Entrepreneurship

Uganda Youth Startup Academy, a Platform for Sharing Achievements

On the 12th, the Ministry of SMEs and Startups announced that it held a performance reporting conference in Kampala, the capital of Uganda, to share the achievements of the Youth Startup Academy transfer project, which began as the first official development assistance (ODA) project in the SME and venture sector, and to promote its expansion.

The Uganda Youth Startup Academy project was planned to transfer the Youth Startup Academy model, which was introduced in 2011 with the goal of nurturing innovative young entrepreneurs and has become a representative startup support program in Korea, to Uganda through the ODA method. It officially started in 2022 through collaboration with the Ugandan government and the International Trade Centre, a UN agency.

To encourage outstanding young people in the Uganda region to challenge entrepreneurship and revitalize the economy through it, domestic and international experts provide various educational courses for prospective entrepreneurs and early-stage startups in areas such as product development, market analysis, financing, and global expansion. They also install and help practically utilize the latest equipment necessary for the initial startup process, such as 3D printers. In addition, to support systematic startup policy formulation, policy consulting for the preparation of startup-related laws and the design of effective startup policies has also been conducted.

Over the past three years, through this support, 1,032 young people have completed the startup education course, and the startup success rate has exceeded 30%, which is expected to inject new vitality into Uganda’s economy in the future, the Ministry explained. Thirty-nine new startups attracted investments totaling 1.38 million USD from the Ugandan government and overseas investors such as France, and created 273 new jobs, gradually producing tangible results.

At this performance reporting conference, specific success cases of several companies were shared, and discussions were held on ways for the Youth Startup Academy to continuously generate results and contribute to building a virtuous startup ecosystem in Uganda even after the ODA project ends in December.

Choi Won-young, Global Growth Policy Officer at the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, said, “The Uganda Youth Startup Academy is the first case of transferring Korea’s advanced SME and venture policies to developing countries, and, as in Korea, entrepreneurship is expected to play a key role in Uganda’s economic development process.” He added, “We will continue to communicate with the Ugandan government and others to ensure that this project becomes a sustainable ODA model rather than a one-time support project, and based on this, we will strive to spread Korea’s excellent policies to other developing countries.”