BACKGROUNDThe Citizen Entrepreneurial Development Agency (CEDA) was established by the Government of the Republic of Botswana to provide financial and technical support for business development with a view to promote viable and sustainable citizen owned business enterprises. CEDA was incorporated as a company limited by guarantee on the April 12th, 2001 and commenced operations in June 2001.The company was established in response to a recommendation made by the National Conference on Citizen Economic Empowerment (NCCEE) held in July 1999, in order to introduce the professional management of the Government financial assistance initiatives and to streamline the numerous projects providing similar schemes. The Agency is established to address the need for coherent and holistic support for the development of small, medium and large scale enterprises through the soft window and package offered through the subsidiaries.CEDA offers funding for capital expenditure, stock or working capital in new and existing business ventures. It also offers training and mentoring for new and seasoned entrepreneurs and business advisory services to entrepreneurs in various skills as identified through the needs assessment that is conducted during project monitoring.STRUCTUREThe control of CEDA is vested in the Board of Directors appointed by the Botswana Government. The Board of directors consists of representatives from Government and Non Government agencies. In this way commercial sense balanced with the social responsibility of Government will come to bear on the operations of CEDA.The key functions of the board of directors are to direct, monitor and control the strategic direction of CEDA, ensuring that sound business policies are practiced and the objectives of the agency are being met. The Chief Executive Officer assisted by the Chief Operations Officer, the Chief Financial officer and Senior Management Team manage the company.