Thailand Overseas Investment Center

         Sebastien Gnonhoussou has struggled most of his life to support his family. Sitting amidst piles of colorful fabrics and a manual sewing machine, he tells the story of his long and interesting journey to entrepreneurship.

A tailor, Sebastien was one of thousands of individuals operating in the informal sector in Benin, a small country in West Africa with a population of roughly 10 million people. He faced many challenges to grow his business because of insufficient access to credit and financial services, common constraints to business formalization and private sector development in Sub-Saharan Africa.

In 2014, Sebastien was offered the opportunity to formalize his small business by registering as an entreprenant, a new simplified legal regime adopted by the Organization for the Harmonization of Business Law in Africa (OHADA).

The regime is specifically designed to encourage small entrepreneurs to join the formal sector. As a beneficiary of the Entreprenant pilot project in Benin (the first of 17 member states to implement the status), Sebastien received valuable support to register his business within 24 hours, at no cost, to obtain a professional“entreprenant” card, and to open a bank account.