Published: September 8, 2026
MONROVIA – Liberia has no shortage of young people with ideas. What it lacks is the machinery to turn those ideas into businesses banks will lend to and investors will back.
YEIB-MANCO, the Youth Entrepreneurship Investment Bank Management Company, was established by the African Development Bank and the government of Liberia to close that gap. Its mandate is to serve as a catalyst for youth empowerment, enterprise development and inclusive growth, and its target group is entrepreneurs between the ages of 18 and 35.
The company is built on a simple observation. Across the country, young people run agricultural enterprises, develop technology solutions, launch service businesses, and open small manufacturing operations. Most of them have talent and determination. What they lack is collateral, a credit history, and the record-keeping that lenders require before they will consider an application. That gap, not any shortage of ambition, keeps promising ventures small.
YEIB-MANCO addresses it from both sides. For entrepreneurs, it offers business advisory support, mentorship, investment-readiness coaching and market linkages. For lenders, it offers instruments including a Credit Guarantee Fund designed to reduce the risk of lending to businesses that cannot meet conventional collateral requirements. Working with government institutions, development partners, financial institutions and enterprise support organizations, the company is assembling pathways to opportunities that were previously out of reach for youth-led firms.
“Our mandate is to make Liberian businesses stronger, more organized, and ready for investment and growth,” said Joseph Fatorma Sando, chief executive officer of YEIB-MANCO, at the launch of the company’s technical assistance program in Monrovia. “That means hands-on support in business planning, financial management, marketing, record-keeping, product development, digitalization, and market access. We’re building businesses that banks and investors can trust.”
The company operates on principles of transparency, accountability, inclusion, and equal opportunity, and is deliberate about reach. Women, rural entrepreneurs and young people outside the traditional business networks of the capital are part of the intended constituency, on the premise that talent exists everywhere and opportunity should follow it.
The measure of the work will not be found in reports or financial statements. It will be found in the farmer who moves from subsistence to commercial production and hires his neighbors, in the caterer whose kitchen becomes a company with a payroll, and in the founder whose idea becomes a business that solves a problem and employs people while doing it. Every enterprise that succeeds creates jobs, circulates money locally, and gives the next young person a reason to try.
That is the institution’s point. Young Liberians are not recipients of development assistance. They will build the economy, and YEIB-MANCO exists to make sure they have what they need to do it.
Applications are now open
The YEIB-MANCO Technical Assistance Program is accepting applications from entrepreneurs aged 18 to 35 who are the sole founder or head of their business. Successful applicants receive business training, investment-readiness coaching and connections to markets and financiers. The first cohort will select 50 businesses from across Liberia.
Apply at yeibmancota.com. Phone 0774251011 or 0889251011. Email [email protected].
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