The Mastercard Foundation Fund for Resilience and Prosperity had its second regional Agribusiness Challenge Fund event on Thursday 4 July 2024, in Johannesburg, South Africa. The Southern Africa event audience included SMEs, agribusiness associations and organizations with a particular youth focus across the region.
Smita Sanghrajka, the Fund Engagement Partner, gave a warm welcome to the guests during her opening remarks, highlighting the impact the program intends to create across Sub-Saharan Africa in empowering SMEs to scale up and unlock enterprise growth and sustain the creation of dignified and fulfilling work opportunities for young people including young people living with disabilities and refugee youth.
The Fund Program Director, Grace Mberia, Communications and Convening Lead, Nashipae Leteipan and Agriculture Thematic Lead, John Kavilu, gave a presentation of the objectives and design of the Fund. Grace Mberia highlighted the process of selecting the 20 focus countries which included an analysis process that identified the countries with the most potential to sustain a vibrant ecosystem based on the assessment of challenges faced by SMEs in enterprise growth and job creation. She also highlighted the importance of the technical assistance intervention and the role it aims to play in addressing the barriers concerning human capital and access to markets.
Nashipae Leteipan highlighted the progress of the Agribusiness Challenge Fund and harvest models which enables the evaluation of applications on a rolling basis. She also highlighted the importance of creating an enabling environment through stakeholder engagement and peer to peer learnings and encouraged the audience to further engage with the Fund on its digital platforms and various stakeholder engagements such as information webinars.
John Kavilu took the audience through the application process, highlighting the eligibility and selection criteria and expectations from the SME business models as they continue to apply to the challenge fund, demonstrating their ability to absorb the funding range of US$ 500,000 to US$ 2,500,000. He also explained the business plan stage and process of communicating results at each stage. The team engaged the audience on all questions raised based off their presentation, providing clarification on the timelines and evaluation process.
Panel session: Exploring how SMEs in the Agribusiness sector can attract investment from the private sector.
The Fund Market Studies Lead, Grace Njiru, moderated the first panel session titled ‘Exploring how SMEs in the Agribusiness sector can attract private sector investment’. The panellists included Mpho Ratladi, Finance Director of Norsad Capital, Mayibongwe Gumbo, Head of Accounting and Tax, Allegro Enterprises (pty) and Wilson Irungu, Fund Grants Lead. Grace Njiru highlighted results from the market studies and the consistent challenge of access to finance across all the 20 focus countries and requested the panellists to share the experience within the region on this topic.
Mpho Ratladi from Norsad Capital gave insight into challenges such as lack of access to flexible and blended financing options which would allow SME businesses to focus on delivery and innovation, regulations within the region that hinder growth and capacity building that also involves collaboration with research institutions that provide further guidance on risk management, operations, training on smart agriculture and audited financials to enable SME businesses within the region to be investor ready. The panellists also agreed that agribusinesses need a conducive and enabling environment with all value chains to achieve global competitiveness. The Fund Grants Lead, Wilson Irungu, also provided insight on how the Fund’s technical assistance and connect interventions were designed to support SMEs to develop sustainable business plans and further attract investment beyond the challenge fund. He also highlighted how the convening and influencing intervention intends to support the SMEs selected by connecting them to experienced partners to drive systemic change.
Panel session: Exploring what additional support is required for SMEs to be successful and create work opportunities.
The Fund Portfolio Lead, Joseph Sawe, moderated the second panel session titled ‘Exploring what additional support is required for SMEs to be successful and create work opportunities.’ The panellists included Dr André Laas, Ambassador, SmartFood Growing Technologies, Frank Chibanda, Head of Agriculture, Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator and Muthoni Waweru, Fund GESI Lead.
Joseph Sawe engaged with the panellists on the most critical non-financial support services that Southern African Agribusiness SMEs need to thrive and create job opportunities, the most effective ways to deliver the additional support, and the role of the Fund in providing holistic support to ensure the employment of young women especially. Some of the support mentioned by the panellists included bridging the skills gap through technical assistance, changing the African mindset regarding gender roles especially in technology and innovation, and market access.
Dr André Laas from SmartFood Growing Technologies highlighted that Agri-SMEs in Southern Africa need to build resilience against many challenges faced even as they create the right kind of work opportunities on a large scale for young people.
The Southern Africa Agribusiness Challenge Fund event was successful with interactive sessions on the challenges that SMEs face, support that they require, and the role that the Mastercard Foundation Fund for Resilience and Prosperity will play in supporting SMEs in creating work opportunities for young women and men, young people living with disabilities, and refugee youth.
A number of videos taken at this event are available below that give more insight into the Fund and the Agribusiness Challenge Fund.
| Southern Africa Agribusiness Challenge Fund Event, Johannesburg | Technical Assistant Support for Agri-SMEs, Grace Mberia | Advancing Gender and Social Inclusion with the Fund, Muthoni Waweru | Eligibility and Selection Criteria for the Agribusiness Challenge Fund, John Kavilu |
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