
The Bruh Entrepreneurship Competition is a call to young entrepreneurs to bring forth innovative ideas to solve critical cross-sectoral challenges such as infrastructure, health, agriculture, etc. to meet public needs and grow to become a profitable company on the way. The challenge aims to facilitate seed grants and acceleration to entrepreneurs who are mature in concept and can be commercialized timely. The competition with direct grant and loan funding capacity will support business development from ideation to a financially rewarding business. Boosting competition’s impact will require actively seeking out mature enterprise ideas that are implementable and can penetrate the market as well as generate revenue in as little as three years and have the capacity to scale up.
This will be the basis for a flourishing start-up business environment in Ethiopia subsequently resulting in an increased financial movement that will benefit financial institutions when growth is realized, simultaneously a multiplier effect can be observed regarding job creation. Competition has the capacity to become a strong supplier of innovative start-ups by utilizing multiple stakeholders to widen resources available to enhance its impact and its sustainability. It will operate in a transparent manner to realize accountable implementation and ensure support to the overarching objective of solving critical cross-sectoral issues that are evident.
Bruh 2022
Coming Soon
Sustainable job creation and youth employment are critical challenges that Ethiopia is facing today, as the Country aims to transition to a middle-income country by 2025. With about 2 million new entrants to the labor market every year, 49% of the employed population being in subsistence employment, and ~70% of the population under 29 years old, a concentrated effort to grow current jobs, create new jobs, improve the quality of these jobs and the inclusiveness of the labor market are necessary. To this end, the Jobs Creation Commission (henceforth referred to as JCC) adopted a holistic approach to tackle the binding constraints to jobs and proposed an ambitious, yet urgent call to create 14 million sustainable jobs by 2025.
The Commission is a year-old federal institution established under the Prime Minister Office in Ethiopia, with a mandate to coordinate, govern and monitor all national and regional institutions to reach the nation’s objective to align policy and institutional strategic plan to achieve a sustainable jobs ecosystem.
Well-aware of past local and global experiences that policy and governance alone cannot produce sustainable outcomes with a single change, JCC spearheads the jobs creation agenda by initiating a ‘One Plan. One Report’ initiative and data collection mechanism to capacitate institutions and facilitate systemic change. Building institutional capacity by raising expectations, increasing motivation, and building networks of relationships, have the power to transform the jobs ecosystem. Thus, JCC intends to resolve competing objectives and weed out disjointed, fragmented decision-making practices that impact employability, jobs creation, quality of jobs, human capital potential, and economic growth by connecting the dots and creating enabling jobs environments to drive the system.
The JCC has worked on developing a Plan of Action for Job Creation (PAJC) that aims to identify the set of policies and programs required to foster job creation and unleash the potential of the Ethiopian Economy. The Plan of Action for Job Creation proposes holistic interventions to solve the employment and job creation challenges and provides a new vision of employment in Ethiopia. The plan aims to foster the business environment and conditions necessary to create 14 million jobs by 2025, to absorb the currently unemployed, and to ensure that sustainable jobs are created for new entrants to the labor force. The plan has been developed through important and lengthy consultations with relevant stakeholders from the public and private sectors, following an important paradigm shift from a state-led to a balanced public and private-led growth.
The Mastercard Foundation works with visionary organizations to enable young people in Africa and in Indigenous communities in Canada to access dignified and fulfilling work. It is one of the largest, private foundations in the world with a mission to advance learning and promote financial inclusion to create an inclusive and equitable world. The Foundation was created by Mastercard in 2006 as an independent organization with its own Board of Directors and management. For more information on the Foundation, please visit: www.mastercardfdn.org

Target is a consulting firm established in 2004 for the provision of consulting services in business, finance and organizational development. It also provides business outsourcing services including fund management, payroll and payment management services. Target has been assigned by the MCF to provide service to the Enabling Ethiopia Project of JCC as a Fund Manager. Accordingly, it has the responsibility of handling the process of procurement of service, hiring service providers and effect payment for the service provided as per the approval of its performance of the assignment by the Enabling Ethiopia, JCC project.