Flying high - brainstorming above the rooftops of Frankfurt

From left to right: Symerre Grey-Johnson (AUDA-NEPAD), Magnus Schmid (ABF), Sabine Klaus (SIFA), Daphine Muzawazi, (AUDA-NEPAD), Arshfod N. Ngugi (ABF)

Representatives of GIZ and the Director of the Human Capital and Institutional Development Department (HCID) AUDA-NEPAD, Symerre Grey-Johnson, met on the Main Tower for an informal exchange 4th of August.

The African Union Development Agency-NEPAD is based in Midrand South-Africa and the implementing agency of the African Union. Its mandate is to coordinate and execute priority regional and continental projects to promote regional integration towards the accelerated realisation of Agenda 2063 and strengthen capacity of African Union Member States and regional bodies, advance knowledge-based advisory support, undertake the full range of resource mobilisation and serve as the continent’s technical interface with all Africa’s development stakeholders and development partners.

The brainstorming session at lofty heights with representatives of the Agribusiness Facility for Africa (ABF) and Technical Advisor Skills Initiative for Africa (SIFA) GIZ projects focused on how to work together to support women entrepreneurs, particularly with companies from the “missing middle” class.

One day later in GIZ’s headquarters in Eschborn, the discussion dived deeper into synergies aimed at creating robust training programmes that emphasize skill development and entrepreneurship like the Farmer Business School. A standard tool of GIZ with the aim to train farmers who live from subsistence farming to businesswomen and men in order to diversify, process and market their production. GIZ has trained more than 1.9 million farmers and small entrepreneurs in Africa so far. By nurturing a new generation of agribusiness leaders, this partnership seeks to create sustainable and inclusive agribusiness ecosystems.

A significant focus of the discussions centered on the Gender makes Business Sense plus (GmBS+) training material, an evolved version of the GmBS 2.0 programme developed within the framework of Skills Initiative for Africa (SIFA) and AUDA-NEPAD. The Gender Focal Point for ABF, Lou Lefort, briefed Daphine Muzawazi, AUDA-NEPAD training coordinator, on how the GmBS+ courses can be adopted and adapted to empower female agripreneurs with the skills, business cases, and resources necessary for investment and transforming gender relations within agrifood systems.

The meeting also explored possibilities to expand the ABF GMBS+ workstream within HCID to include aquaculture and poultry value-chains for women and youth entrepreneurs. Also, it has been discussed that the proven and tested training instruments and platforms used by ABF will be adapted within the AUDA-NEPAD and AECID joint programme called- Creating Opportunities for Youth and Women in Africa- COYWA.