Anyone of any nationality can present a business plan for one of the BiD Challenge countries. If you are serious and motivated about creating or expanding a business that improves the quality of living standards in a developing country please read on.

The BiD Challenge countries in 2008 are: Peru, Colombia, Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya, Philippines.

Participation criteria

BiD Network aims at innovation and growth small and medium enterprises, firms, businesses, sole proprietorships that must meet the following criteria.
A business plan application:

  1. Is written in English or in Spanish
  2. Has as Country of Business an Emerging market1
  3. Has a financing requirement of between US$10,000 and US$1,000,000.
  4. Aims to be a profitable business2 in the next three years.
  5. Can double its sales or direct employees within three years (an average of 30% growth per year)
  6. Meets the Social and Environmental requirements. (for details concerning this see the Social and Environmental exclusion list below).

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1) All countries listed on the DAC list of the OECD:
www.oecd.org/dataoecd/23/34/37954893.pdf
Please note: the DAC list of the OECD is reviewed every three years. A new revision is expected in the latter part of 2008. To maintain clarity though, the BiD Network has decided to use the current list, dating from January 2006, as its reference for operations in 2008.
2To check what BiD understands as a business, please see our General Terms and Conditions, article 3.3