Business concepts from 16 Arab countries compete for 'Sawaed' grants

Aimed at encouraging Arab businesses to develop commercially sustainable enterprises whilst addressing development challenges of the region, Sawaed will offer grants ranging from Dhs100,000 to Dhs1m.

Officials at the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation's Entrepreneurship and Employment sector said the deadline for the Sawaed 2008 programme ended on 12 October, with short-listing of the winners to commence shortly.

Alaa Afifi, Director of Entrepreneurship - Employment and Entrepreneurship sector, Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation, said:

"We are highly impressed with the interest and enthusiasm demonstrated by Arab enterprises towards promoting the concept of the challenge fund in the Arab world. We are confident the programme will positively impact the economic landscape in the region and generate both short and long term opportunities for the Arab youth."

"In an indication of the Arab women's growing keenness to actively contribute to the regional development drive, 40% of the applicants to Sawaed this year are women. We are optimistic about their growing role in the private sector and look forward to empowering them as key partners in the region's economic development," Afifi added.

Finalists qualifying for the second round of the Sawaed challenge fund will be notified before 30 November, and requested to provide detailed information of their submitted project concepts before 29 January, 2009. Winners will be announced during the first quarter of 2009.

Afifi added: "Through a strict and transparent evaluation process, all applications will be assessed by a jury of experts against a clear set of standards that will communicated directly to all applicants and posted on the Foundation's website."

Sawaed drew the largest number of applications from Egypt, Palestine, Lebanon and the UAE, and evoked extensive interest from countries such as Bahrain, Algeria, Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Sudan, Syria, and Tunisia.

The purpose of the 'challenge fund' this year is to stimulate private enterprises, using ICT as a platform to create innovative and commercially replicable forms of information and knowledge sharing, for application in the Arab world. Sawaed eventually aims to generate new job opportunities and tackle challenges posed by widespread unemployment across the Arab world.