Seychelles MSME Development Project — AfDB-Financed Finance-and-Training Package for Small Enterprises

The Seychelles MSME Development Project was launched in 2014 with a grant from the African Development Bank's Fund for African Private Sector Assistance (FAPA), reported at US$1.0 million at signing and US$1.2 million at project completion. It targeted the two constraints AfDB identified as limiting small-enterprise growth on the archipelago: access to finance and entrepreneurial skills.
The Small Business Finance Agency (SBFA) delivered micro-loans while the Small Enterprise Promotion Agency (SEnPA), working with the University of Seychelles, delivered business-development training. Two SEnPA courses graduated 509 MSME owners, a further 200 MSMEs were trained in financial management in 2018, and 8 trainers plus 8 SEnPA staff were trained in 2017 to sustain delivery.
The number of MSMEs financed nearly doubled from 360 in 2015 to 719 in 2016, reaching 716 by project completion in June 2020 against an initial target of 540, while loan-recovery rates improved from 10–30% in 2015 to 90% in 2017. In 2018, SBFA and SEnPA were merged into the Enterprise Seychelles Agency (ESA), which continued the model after the project's formal end.
These figures come from AfDB's own project reporting, syndicated via AllAfrica and partly corroborated by independent trade press (Africa Business Communities); no independent ex-post evaluation was located, and the initial grant amount is reported inconsistently across sources (US$1.0 million at signing versus US$1.2 million at completion).

Read the full analysis: https://www.afdb.org/en/news-and-events/fund-for-african-private-sector-assistance-to-support-micro-small-and-medium-enterprises-in-the-seychelles-13896/