As part of the Entrepreneur Support Program (ESP), launched in December 2020, Nourishing Africa in partnership with the Mastercard Foundation and United States African Development Foundation (USADF) has trained 1,000 agripreneurs on models to build and scale their businesses.
The training themed ‘Agribusiness Entrepreneur Development’ comprised of intensive daily training sessions held between March and April 2021, across 11 states in Nigeria, provided participants the opportunity to acquire practical knowledge, skills, and insights to enable them to retool, rebuild and strengthen their business models while also withstanding future shocks, and driving sustainable growth in the landscape.
Facilitated by 36 industry experts and thought-leaders in entrepreneurship, business, agriculture, and food landscapes in Nigeria and across the globe, the seminar leveraged various teaching methods to engage the participants, including hands-on practical sessions, lectures, class discussions, and panel discussions.
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Some of the topics discussed at various sessions of the event include cross-examining the Nigerian food and agriculture landscapes, demand-driven business models, an introduction to value chain analysis, leveraging technology and innovation, maximizing branding, marketing, and communication; financing your agribusiness, shaping your ecosystem among others.
At the seminar, the participants expressed satisfaction with the quality of knowledge gleaned at the various sessions stressing that they are excited to share key learnings and impacts of the training on their agribusinesses on social media.
Meanwhile, Nourishing Africa has promised to make the curriculum widely available both as an e-learning tool to other African entrepreneurs and modules into the existing academic curriculum to equip the youth with the requisite skills and knowledge to build sustainable businesses on the continent.
The training program is one of the key projects under the Mastercard Foundation COVID-19 Recovery and Resilience Program that aims to attract, empower, equip, connect, and celebrate over one million dynamic and innovative young entrepreneurs who will drive profitable and sustainable growth of the African agriculture and food landscapes.
