Micro-entrepreneurship: 70% of success with OPEA

More than 70% of the 343 young people selected and trained by the Ministry of Agriculture and supported by the program PROSPERER are now seeing their professional activities thriving. On December 20, at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Antananarivo, the Secretary General of the Ministry, Philibert Rakotoson, recalled that helping these young people was part of the Operation for the promotion of agricultural entrepreneurship (OPEA). OPEA was launched by the ministry of Agriculture in early 2010 to help laid-off workers, especially those working in the textile industry, to reintegrate the professional world.

At that period, the department registered 10 000 projects proposed by young people. After a selection process, 494 non-agricultural projects were entrusted to PROSPERER. 343 or 70% of them have been showing high commitment and dynamism while working with this program. PROSPERER’s national coordinator, Lucien Ranarivelo, states that 70% of the groups of young people they support are successful in their new business, 10.6% are stagnant and 19% have met failure.

In fact, the activities of these new rural entrepreneurs are measured, among other things, through the development of their savings and credit. 146 of them are members of microfinance institutions, and thirty of them have borrowed nearly 30 million Ariary from these institutions.