Our vision focuses on individuals and their ability to harness their creativity to drive change. The CCIs can provide substantial economic leverage, and are an embryonic sector in sub-Saharan Africa. The sector mainly consists of small or medium-sized organisations with a significant effect on local development.

In addition, work in the cultural and creative sector can be particularly attractive to women and young people, whose employment is a priority in Africa. Sustainable, non-polluting and unlimited in its resources, the creative field is one of the preferred routes to achieve the economic and ecological diversification that modern and globalised economies so urgently need.

It is for these reasons that Afrique Créative takes the approach of supporting cultural and creative entrepreneurship by offering training, guidance and networking opportunities to CCI organisations.

Our mission is to identify cultural and creative entrepreneurs with high potential and to support, strengthen and network them in order to accelerate the development of their organizations.

The programme will include:

• Technical support, in terms of both entrepreneurial capacity-building and creative and cultural coaching;
• Financial support to accelerate the organisation’s development and consolidate its business model.

Afrique Créative offers an intensive incubation programme for cultural and creative entrepreneurs, who will be selected according to the call for applications.

This programme combines different methods and support tools:

• An e-learning platform will enable incubated entrepreneurs to follow the distance learning modules; this will constitute a real "virtual" living space for participants who will be able to exchange, question and share their experiences.
• Two bootcamps will be organized in two of the four countries of the program, bringing together all the entrepreneurs (see the indicative schedule). These residential workshops will allow all the incubated entrepreneurs to meet and take part in interactive workshops during which each will actively participate in the community’s skills development.
• Tailor-made support: Each of the incubates will have two mentors who will accompany them regularly during the program:
  • A mentor from the "CCI" sector, who will support them in the cultural and creative aspects of their organization;
  • A mentor from the business world, who will coach them on management and business aspects in order to better structure their business model.
• Peer reinforcement and exchange visits: the mobility grant and the various meetings planned during the programme will allow each participant to (re)discover new contexts, meet ICC entrepreneurs from other horizons and get exposed to other realities and practices.
• Specific fundraising support completes the incubation scheme, which will be carried out by I&P Conseil, a specialist in impact investment in Africa.
• This programme should enable each entrepreneur to network with new partners and potential investors.

Each entrepreneur selected as part of Creative Africa will benefit from a grant, ranging from 75,000 to 125,000 euros, depending on the needs of his/her organization.

The objectives of this scholarship are to :

• Be a funding tool: This grant addresses the lack of adequate funding for CCIs;
• Give a boost: this grant should help accelerate the company’s development by consolidating its business model;
• Open doors for innovation: this grant must make it possible to start a new activity, a new product, service or process innovation;
• Become lucrative: this exchange should make it possible to generate more own income through a better structure of the economic model and/or to attract ICC investors.

The principles related to the use of this funding are:

• Flexibility: the constraints as to the type of development project and activities to be financed are relatively reduced in order to leave room for creativity and innovation;
• Own contribution: each company must contribute at least 25% of the current development project budget (human resources, rent, communication, other financing, etc.);
• Conditional disbursements: it is necessary to validate certain steps during the support to receive each instalment of the funding;
• Mobility" and "co-financing" grants: these amounts are fixed on a lump sum basis and must allow incubates to take part in international activities on the one hand and to co-finance another development project on the other hand, if funding opportunities arise during the support.

The estimated timetable of Afrique Créative is as follows :

• October 2019: Organisational diagnosis (self-evaluation) and introduction sessions
• October 2019: Bootcamp 1: Residential workshops – 1 week (Ouagadougou)
• November 2019 to March 2020: Coaching + E-learning – Around 1 session per week
• May 2020: Bootcamp 2: Residential workshops – 1 week (Kampala)
• May to November 2020: Fund-raising support
• November 2020: Closing event
• December 2020: Reporting and assessment of the programme