Five to ten million FCFA, training, and post-funding support: Cameroon is reopening its Business Plans Competition for a second round, aiming to back 1,000 young entrepreneurs.
The programme runs under the Adaptive Social Safety Nets and Economic Inclusion Project, funded by the World Bank and the Cameroonian government. Each winner, aged 18 to 35, gets financial support plus training, coaching and follow-up after funding.
Six cities are covered: Yaoundé, Douala, Bamenda, Buea, Maroua and Garoua. Applicants must be based there and run a startup-phase business — one to three years old — with growth and job-creation potential.
Applications run online from September 7 to October 17, 2026, via the pfs-aie.cm platform, with priority given to sectors the government considers promising.
The stated goal is twofold: chip away at youth unemployment, estimated around 6% in 2026, and fill a gap in conventional financing — entrepreneurs with a solid project but no track record to show for it.
A first round already ran under this format. This second one will show whether the competition-support-follow-up formula delivers on jobs, city by city.
