District employment and business development units provide high impact services to job seekers, entrepreneurs, aspiring entrepreneurs and cooperatives relating to consultancy, market access, technology and product development, training and technical assistance, access to finance, basic accounting and policy and advocacy.

In particular, youth and women with business attractive ideas and entrepreneurs in the informal sector who show growth potential are provided with tailor-made and on-the-spot practical Entrepreneurship, mentoring and coaching by “Business Development Advisors”, present in every administrative sector.

Business Development Fund (BDF) is a company established to support SMEs in form of credit guarantees, lines of credit, matching grants, quasi-equity as well as advisory services. BDF services are provided to individual clients, start up, small and medium sized companies, associations, cooperatives, micro-finance institutions and SACCOs. 

A Savings and Credit Cooperative (SACCO) is a financial institution in which members save their money and can get loans. They are user-owned and members have equal voting rights regardless of their deposit amount or shareholdings. Their main products are savings and credit.

Some of the benefits of SACCOs are:

• An easy way of organizing a community to save and recycle savings in a given locality.
• Mobilizing savings locally, within the community, and then the profits are returned to members in the form of loans. The money stays and works within the membership and the area.

Umurenge SACCO initiative was introduced at the administrative Sector level to address the challenges related to access to financial institutions and low savings across the country. As of end 2015, 416 Umurenge SACCOs are operating countywide and have cumulatively attracted 2.4 million members. Thanks to this initiative, 90% of Rwandans are now within a 5km radius of a financial institution.