Agribusiness Incubation in Sub-Saharan Africa

Wednesday, 22 July 2020 - 14:00-16:00 (Rome time, GMT+2)

Join the Online Event

Creating sustainable jobs and incomes for young people is a top priority for all African governments. The agricultural sector offers huge opportunities, and more than any other economic sector, has the potential to provide gainful employment and generate income for significant numbers of young people; however, its potential has not been exploited. 

Agriculture in Africa has frequently been associated with smallholder farming – traditional, labour intensive and outdated in production, processing and marketing. This image has deterred young professional people in engaging in the sector. But, there are great examples of successful African enterprises that have overcome this stereotype and created modern, efficient and competitive agribusinesses. 

Incubation is a key element in assisting young entrepreneurs to establish, grow and flourish their agribusinesses. This webinar presents the key findings from a study of agribusiness incubators across the African continent and identifies opportunities for strengthening the incubation environment on the content to promote agro-entrepreneurship.     

Speaker: Dr Anne Roulin – President Agripreneurship Alliance 

Anne started her career teaching and conducting private sector research at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland. In 1988 she joined Tetra Pak where she worked on development and implementation of innovative processing technologies in the USA, Italy and Switzerland. In 1999 she left Tetra Pak to establish an international company focused on food packaging. In 2003, Anne joined Nestlé and over 15 years held several positions including Vice President of Nutrition and Sustainability for the global research and development department. In 2017 Anne “retired” from Nestle and together with Steven Carr founded the Agripreneurship Alliance (AA) with the aim of “Growing Agripreneurs” in sub-Saharan Africa. AA has developed a training course on “Entrepreneurship in Agribusiness” which is implemented through a variety of African trainers and currently operates in Kenya, Uganda and Somaliland. The course aims to help young agripreneurs develop solid business plans that will launch agri-enterprises across diverse agricultural value chains.

Moderator: Mark Fynn, Agro-Food Systems Specialist with FAO’s Sub-regional Office for Southern Africa, Harare, Zimbabwe. Former senior Agribusiness Adviser to the African Union Commission. 

Panelists:

Ade Freeman, Regional Programme Leader (RPL), FAO Regional Office for Africa (RAF)

Samy Gaiji, FAO Representative for Cote d’Ivoire

Alex Ariho, CEO Africa Agribusiness Incubator Network (AAIN)

Evelyn Ohanwusi, Youth in Agribusiness Office, The International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA)

Moyo Olisa, Entrepreneurship Programme Manager, The Tony Elumelu Foundation 

Anne Roulin, President Agripreneurship Alliance