With the purpose of facilitating access to financing for rural enterprises, the Ministry of Environment and Energy (Minae), hand in hand with the regional program “Escalating Ecosystem-based Adaptation Measures in Rural Latin America” (EbA LAC), created an alliance with the ACTIVA incubator to promote, through non-reimbursable funds and specialized advice, businesses in the territories where the program operates in the country.
ACTIVA is led by the Forest and Biodiversity Unit in Productive Landscapes of CATIE (Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center) and is accredited by the Development Banking System (SBD). “Thanks to this alliance, it is proposed that ACTIVA-CATIE can use the platform and experience it has developed in recent years, while the EbA LAC Program contributes to strengthening ACTIVA as a business incubator and accelerator, to institutionalize the concept of Adaptation based on Ecosystems in the enterprises and, in this way, allow their financial sustainability through the creation of resilience in the face of climate change, which fills us with satisfaction”, said Rafael Gutiérrez, Vice Minister of Environment.
Full support will be given
The initiative contemplates at least 3 calls between 2023 and 2025, which will benefit 30 enterprises per year and where SBD will be contributing US$300,000 per year, which means that each enterprise will receive the equivalent in colones of US$10,000 and you must contribute US$500 as a counterpart. In addition to providing seed capital, EbA LAC and ACTIVA-CATIE will offer support to the selected ventures through professional advice, monitoring of results and impact measurement, as well as proposals for monitoring indicators for the evaluation of each one of the businesses.
The first call remained open until June 18th through the page activa.catie.ac.cr/web/ and was aimed at enterprises that incorporate activities such as rural community tourism, livestock (milk, meat, etc.) into their business model. or double purpose), vegetables, tubers, coffee, and forestry, located in the cantons of San Carlos, Sarapiquí, Pococí, Guácimo, Alajuela, Alfaro Ruiz, Valverde Vega, Grecia, Naranjo and Poás.
