Growing agribusiness entrepreneurs in East Africa

Exciting times for the Agripreneurship Alliance! Following our registration as an official international NGO in Uganda and the opening of an office at the CURAD incubator in Kampala, we have hired two staff members who started on September 1^st.

John is our new Programme Manager, and this is what he had to say about his appointment. “I am thrilled and eager to support the mission of the Agripreneurship Alliance, developing the next generation of African Agripreneurs. We must unleash young people’s creativity and potential if we are to address challenges such as youth migration, food insecurity and climate change”.

Sheila is our new Administration Officer, in her words “Work isn’t fun until you meet your dream team and I believe I have found mine and I have great confidence that together we shall build something amazing for young African agrifood entrepreneurs”.

John and Sheila bring a wealth of experience in entrepreneurship, the financial sector, agricultural research as well as in NGOs and we are delighted to have them “on board”. Steven spent most of September in Uganda for their induction and together they met most of our Ugandan partners. It will be a fast ramp-up as Steven, John and Sheila will be delivering together a Business Readiness Training of Trainers course in Zambia at the end of October for five universities from Zambia and Kenya. This is in collaboration with the Häme University of Applied Sciences in Finland and PBL-BioAfrica.

The fourth cohort of the Entrepreneurship in Agribusiness training is drawing to a close and so far, 43 business plans have been submitted for review, with a few more still being finalised. Some very interesting business ideas – such as Amaranthus value addition, mulberry teas and juices, and natural liquid fertilisers. We are particularly pleased to see the progress of the Official University of Bukavu in the Democratic Republic of Congo who facilitated two groups this year and submitted several well-written business plans that can certainly lead to successful enterprises.

• Sheila_and_John__Agripreneurship_Alliance.pdf (PDF)
  

After a lot of paperwork, the Agripreneurship Alliance is now registered as an official international NGO in Uganda. We have also signed a Partnership Agreement with the CURAD Agribusiness Incubator on the outskirts of Kampala “to work together in line with the objectives of CURAD, which aims to support innovative local entrepreneurs and start-up companies operating in the agricultural sector through public-private collaborations and incubation programs”. CURAD has been awarded  the prize for the Best Agribusiness Incubator in Africa several times. We will be setting up an office at the most recent CURAD facility that includes pilot processing equipment for horticultural products that is available for agripreneurs to use for development and early-stage production. In June we are in Kampala to interview for 2 Ugandan staff members.

The 2021-2022 cohort of students following the Entrepreneurship in Agribusiness training is drawing to a close. Eight Universities are participating from Uganda, Kenya, Somaliland, and DR Congo with 221 students registered - 90 Female & 131 Male (41%/59%). We are delighted that for the first time we have one cohort with more female participants than male – this is at the Ugandan Christian University. The business plans are coming in and are being reviewed by our expert team in Switzerland and the USA.  See some testimonies from previous students  Charlotte and Hugues  in the link below. 

The trip to Uganda in June gave the opportunity to meet in person some of the young agripreneurs who have followed our training - which was great! One of them Steven B. has a wine business using local fruit including pineapples, bananas, and mango. Steven’s dream is to start making wine from grapes so we brought him some vine cuttings from Switzerland and will be following closely if they can adapt to the Ugandan climatic conditions. Steven was at the first National Agriculture Education Exhibition in Jinja this month (see photo above) and had the opportunity to share his passion for agriprocessing with many groups of school children. The theme of the Exhibition was Farming for a Prosperous Future. He commented on the change in mindset at exhibitions, from just wanting to taste products, to a desire to be trained in agriculture and agriprocessing. So, there are good signs for the future!

Links:

• Young agripreneurs provided with knowledge and opportunities