Nourishing Africa partners USADF, Mastercard Foundation, to train 1,000 agripreneurs

As part of the Entrepreneur Support Program (ESP), launched in December 2020, Nourishing Africa in collaboration with United States African Development Foundation (USADF) and MasterCard Foundation trained 1,000 agripreneurs on models to develop and scale their business.

The training themed ‘Agribusiness Entrepreneur Development’ comprises intensive daily training sessions to take place between March and April 2021 across 11 states in Nigeria providing participants the opportunity to get practical insights, skills, and knowledge to allow them to retool, strengthen, and rebuild their business models while also driving sustainable growth and withstanding future shocks in the landscape.

The program is facilitated by 36 industry experts and thought leaders in entrepreneurship, food landscapes, business, and agriculture in Nigeria and globally. The seminar will use different methods of teaching to engage participants which include lectures, hands-on practical sessions, panel discussions, and class discussions.

Some of the topics discussed at different sessions of the event include cross-examining the Nigerian agricultural and food landscapes, an introduction to value chain analysis, demand-driven business models, leveraging technology and innovation, maximizing marketing, communication and branding; sharing your ecosystems, financing your business among others.

At the seminar participants showed their satisfaction with the quality of knowledge they acquired at various sessions stating that they are glad to share major impacts and learnings of the training on the agribusinesses on social media.

Nourishing Africa has promised to make the curriculum available widely both as modules on the existing academic curriculum and as an eLearning tool to other African entrepreneurs to equip the youth with the required knowledge and skills to develop sustainable business on the continent.

The training program is one of the major projects under the MasterCard Foundation COVID-19 Recovery and Resilience Program which aims to attract, connect, equip, empower and celebrate more than one million dynamic and young entrepreneurs who will drive profitable and sustainable growth of African agriculture and food landscapes.