The Agribusiness in Africa Window (AAW) will fund Kenyan based agri-processing firms processing firms as pat of it's food security support plan for sub-Saharan Africa.
The programme in its second round will see 19 SMEs across 11 African countries including Kenya access funding inform of grants to scale their operations.
The Agribusiness in Africa Window – Round 2 (AAW- R2) is a CAN $20 million (Sh 1.83 billion) programme co-funded by Global Affairs Canada (GAC) and AGRA, and implemented by Africa Enterprise Challenge Fund.
The second round surfaced innovative business models that are best poised to address challenges faced by small and medium agribusinesses and agri-processors (SMEs) to access appropriate financing.
Victoria Sabula, CEO of the AECF, noted that the funds will go towards investments that have enhanced productivity, decreased post-harvest losses, diversified product offerings and created jobs in critical agricultural value chains, resulting in improved livelihoods in rural and marginalised sub-Saharan Africa.
According to the CEO building resilient food systems is a matter of urgency and value addition presents better possibilities for Africa’s smallholder farmers.
“This programme has demonstrated the essence of investing in Close- to production downstream processing facilities that create markets and reduce costs for rural, smallholder producers while increasing incomes, impacting lives, and providing opportunities for value addition,” said Victoria Sabula, CEO of the AECF.
According to AAW the eligible enterprises are businesses working in a variety of agriculture value chains, including maize, legumes, palm oil, bananas, cashew, fruits, sweet potatoes, moringa, livestock production, and digital information services.
Since inception the programme has impacted 2.9 million lives and 582,338 rural households, 60 percent of whom live on less than US$ 2 (Sh240) per day.
Among the countries set to reap from the programme are Kenya, Nigeria, Malawi, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Senegal, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Uganda, and Burundi/DRC.
“Farmers need access to appropriate, affordable technologies for producing resilient, quality crops and a fair chance to benefit from the fruits of their labour,” said Agnes Kalibata, the President of AGRA
“Everyone needs to participate in markets that not only enable the efficient flow of physical goods but also the right flow of information for buyers and sellers to find each other. These are the basic building blocks of any sustainable food system, yet in many countries, they are flawed or missing altogether.”
