MDFUAC Start Up Valley

Training young graduates to start their own companies

Benin is one of the poorest countries in Africa and the world. With around 12,5 million inhabitants the national poverty rate (proportion of people living on less than $ 1.90 a day) was estimated at 38.5 % in 2021. The country’s economy relies mainly on agriculture which is threatened by climate change. With people struggling on a daily basis to make ends meet, it is important to establish new sustainable businesses that provide decent paid jobs.

The UAC Start Up Valley, based in Abomey-Calavi, helps graduates to do exactly that. One of the goals is to create at least 1000 direct and 5000 indirect jobs by 2025, by starting innovative companies. The focus lies on agrobusiness, technologies and services.

Using a blended training program, developed in collaboration with SkillEd and MDF, UAC Start Up Valley trains about 3.600 young entrepreneurs per year.

MDF
Blended training of young entrepreneurs in business skills.

Fighting youth unemployment

Finding a job is one of the main struggles for young people living in Ghana. In 2021 Ghana’s Population and Housing Census estimated the youth unemployment rate at 13.4 %. There is also more than 50% underemployment (World Bank, 2020). According to the African Center for Economic Transformation, umemployment rates are highest among young people aged 29 years and below with bachelor’s degrees. The reasons for the high youth unemployment rate in Ghana are, among others, bad quality of education, inadequate job creation and the fact that often skills don’t match the demands on the job market.

As a consequence, many young people in Ghana start working in the informal sector, for example as own-account workers, domestic employees, apprentices, or unpaid family workers. To support youth in creating sustainable self-employment, the government of Ghana has launched numerous initiatives. Most of these initiatives placed great emphasis on financial support (helping youth access loans), but only little on quality training and support in the actual implementation of the new business. Due to the high costs and limited resources of such trainings, many young people were excluded. Especially in rural areas, where high speed internet access is often limited or not available, commonly used e-learning solutions didn’t work either.

Making training accessible

In collaboration with SkillEd and the University of Winneba, MDF developed an easily accessible blended learning concept (a combination of physical and mobile learning), which contains various training courses. The goal: Improving the employability and entrepreneurship capabilities of youth, women and returning migrants, by matching them with market opportunities and mentoring them into (self-)employment and enterprise development (with a focus on green and climate resilient local economies).

The project, starting in 2018, was financed by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) via “develoPPP”.

More than 2.000 people – mostly students, but also teachers and companies – trained with help of the program. Even though the project officially ended in 2020, the program is used till today and new courses are created regularly.

Thaki

Training ICT skills

In Lebanon and Jordan the NGO Thaki offers blended training of youth and teachers in ICT skills.

Thaki

Training ICT skills

In Lebanon and Jordan the NGO Thaki offers blended training of youth and teachers in ICT skills.

Blue DealStichting Wateropleidingen
Mozambique

Water management training

In Mozambique clean water is scarce. Around half of the 33 million Mozambicans miss access to improved water supply.

Especially in rural areas, surface water is often the only drinking source and can be found only far away from the villages. The fact that the water is often contaminated leads to many waterborne illnesses. It also means that people, mostly women and kids, must carry heavy water containers for hours every day – time they lack to do other work or to go to school. Growing crops becomes difficult, breaking out of the cycle of poverty becomes almost impossible. The effects of climate change are worsening water security even more.

The Blue Deal partnership works with five Mozambican water authorities and the Water and Sanitation Department of the municipality of Beira to establish effective water management. Their main focus lies on improving operational work processes, and training Mozambican professionals.

The training will be done offline and online with help of blended learning courses, developed in collaboration by the local partners, Stichting Wateropleidingen and SkillEd.

East-West Seed

Blended training of small-scale vegetable farmers

In Myanmar small-scale vegetable farmers can access a localized version of blended training course about sustainable farming that East-West Seed / East-West Seed Foundation developed in collaboration with SkillEd for The Philippines. (for more info, click the Philippines).

CARE Peru

Blended training of female entrepreneur

Till today Peruvian women don’t have equal rights. One of the most concerning problems is widespread domestic violence, another one is inequality in the working sector. Women in Peru have more often lower paying jobs and perform the majority of the unpaid care work – a situation that worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2010 the OECD found that women own less than 25 percent of the land, despite the fact that they do much of the same agricultural work as men. Especially on the countryside old patriarchic systems are prevailing and women have little to say in their homes.

CARE Peru supports women, among others, by helping them to establish their own businesses which gives them access to their own finances and some control.
In 2021 CARE Peru and SkillEd successfully launched a pilot project to train female entrepreneurs with a wide range of businesses, focusing on rural areas.

Currently we are working on a new version of the course that will teach women about soft skills (e.g., leadership), practical skills, business plans and development, finances, and gender equality. The new training will be audio-based, not only because many Peruvians prefer this learning method, but also to be usable by students that are illiterate.

East-West Seed

Blended training of small scale farmers

Farming and fishing is the most important and often also the only income source for many families that live in rural areas in the Philippines. According to The Philippine Statistics Authority and based on data from 2018, the incidence of poverty is highest among farmers (31,6 percent). The reasons for poverty vary, some common causes include limited access to credit, poor access to market, destructive weather events, a decline in agricultural productivity, unprofitable smallholder farming operations and unsustainable farming practices which have led to deforestation and other problems.

East-West Seed and East-West Seed Foundation aim to improve the situation of smallholder vegetable farmers by supplying high quality seeds that help to grow better crops and realize higher yields. At the same time, they are promoting sustainable farming and business practices via blended training courses in collaboration with SkillEd.

As many Philippine smallholder farmers have no or only limited access to the Internet, either because they live so far off that there is no coverage, or because they cannot afford it, we piloted not only the web application and Android app, but also used an Internet independent micro-server (Raspberry Pi) to share the application and courses with multiple farmers at once (in addition to the phone-to-phone sharing over Bluetooth).

The pilot in 2020/21 was a success, therefore the course was extended: Nowadays the 16-module training is available in English, Myanmar, Bisaya and Tagalog. Farmers that successfully finished the course get a certificate.

Netherlands Water Partnership (NWP) Can Tho University Nong Lam University Southern Institue of Water Resources Research Vietnam Digital Agriculture Association Vietnam Farmers’ Union Salt Doctors Fresh Studio Royal Eijekelkamp Soil & Water Wageningen University & Research Witteveen+Bos Eurofins

Adapting to salinization

Salinization is a fast-growing global problem in deltas, arid and semi-arid areas. Today it already affects around 8,7 % of the total land area worldwide, every year it takes up to 1,5 million ha of farmland and decreases the production potential of up to 46 million ha. It impacts the quality of water for drinking and irrigation, kills crops and lifestock, threatens food security, biodiversity and livelihood of millions of people.

The Vietnamese Mekong Delta is one of the most salt-affected deltas in the world. Farmers struggle especially during dry season, when saltwater intrusion makes it impossible to cultivate commonly used crops. Agriculture in the Vietnamese “rice bowl” becomes increasingly difficult, food security is at stake.

Multidisciplinary approaches and technologies are needed to solve the challenge of preventing further salt damage and managing and reversing the existing one. Some potential solutions include sustainable soil and water management, growing salt tolerant crops, other biological and chemical management strategies and alternative farming methods. The sooner farmers react to salt-affected soils, the higher the chance to reclaim the land.

A first training was funded by the Asian Development Bank and developed by Netherlands Water Partnership (NWP), in close collaboration with Can Tho University, Nong Lam University, Southern Institue of Water Resources Research Vietnam, the Digital Agriculture Association, the Vietnam Farmers’ Union, the Salt Doctors, Fresh Studio, Royal Eijekelkamp Soil & Water, Wageningen University & Research, Witteveen+Bos, Eurofins and SkillEd.

Read more about it here: NWP supports sustainable water & food solutions for saline Mekong Delta | NWP (netherlandswaterpartnership.com)

CAWEE Resilience

Empowering female entrepreneurs

Ethiopia has taken several measures to support gender equality. As a result, the primary school enrollment rate of girls has increased from 21 to 91 percent in the last thirty years. Still most girls are not able to attend secondary school or university due to financial reasons, distance, and personal security. And the situation might worsen again as the country faces staggering challenges: Food insecurity caused by severe droughts in big parts of the country, climate related floodings, the impacts of COVID-19 and an armed conflict in the north of the country. Women and girls are disproportionately affected as the ongoing conflicts and displacements are fueling sexual violence. Early marriages and female genital mutilation are still common, access to (maternal and sexual) health care is poor.

Positive impact on the whole society

Empowering girls and women are key to not only improve their own situation but also to break the cycle of poverty for their families. Empowered girls bring positive developments to the whole society. Studies, e.g., from UNESCO and the Brookings Institution, show that healthy, educated, and empowered girls mean healthier families, a reduction of maternal and newborn deaths, and overall economic growth.

One way to empower women economically is to help them establishing their own businesses. CAWEE (The Center for African Women Economic Empowerment) does exactly that. The organization’s focus lies on female exporters in six sectors: agribusiness (coffee, honey, milk, milk products and other food), textiles (garments, hand-weaving, hand-made shoes), leather (especially fashion accessories and give away items), gemstones and jewelry, furniture manufacturing and services (tourism, hospitality, consultancy, legal services etc.).

The vision is to create a “globally competitive core women entrepreneur class in Ethiopia”. To transform this vision into reality, CAWEE takes different measurements, one of them is supporting female entrepreneurs with advice, information, and training. The tailor-made training, that was created in collaboration with Resilience BV and SkillEd, addresses both trainers and trainees. The program includes lessons about preparing and customizing a business plan for export, identifying market requirements of different countries, marketing, communication, and presenting products and services. So far 26 female business owners that work with agrifood, leather and textile successfully followed the course.

Edukans

Training lobby skills

Edukans offers a blended training of master trainers in lobby skills in Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, and Uganda.

The course consists of digital content, available on the SkillEd platform, and webinars. It addresses civil society organizations, farmers groups and women self-help groups, who engage in lobbying activities. It is an add-on training to the mobilizing support training of Wilde Ganzen Foundation (Change the Game Academy) within the Civic Engagement Alliance. The Civic Engagement Alliance was a joint collaboration of local and international NGO’s, funded by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Feedback to the Future

Food forestry courses in Makueni County

A severe and unusually long drought grips the eastern Horn of Africa. In Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia and in the Republic of Djibouti four rainy seasons in a row failed to materialize. The consequences are catastrophic: Harvests are ruined, livestock is dying, and millions of people are suffering from hunger and thirst. Parents don’t know how to afford school fees or even how to feed their kids. Several development aid agencies report higher rates of school dropouts and child marriage.

The semi-arid Makueni County in the South-East of Kenya is one of the regions that is hit hard. It’s here, in Maiani, that Benedetta Mwongeli Kyengo planted a 5-acre food forest on her family’s land. Benedetta was born and brought up in Nairobi and crowd funded a scholarship to study Liberal Arts and Science, and Sustainable Business and Innovation in the Netherlands, at the university of Utrecht. Today she lives both in the Netherlands and Kenya.

Food security in tough climates

As Benedetta’s food forest started producing a variety of fruit and vegetables, other farmers from the area, mostly female smallholders, became interested. Benedetta co-founded Feedback to the Future (FttF).

In 2020, the organization reached out to potential students with a self-paced training and education program on syntropic food forestry. The (offline) training in the SkillEd app is complemented by community meetings and practical in-person classes. FttF also offers support with designing and planting food forests and helps farmers to address challenges like water pollution and to start their own tree nurseries.

The project is still growing. So far, the blended training has helped to set up 80 syntropic food forests (incl. annual vegetables), covering an area of about 400 acres in Makueni. Additionally local farmers started 60 private nurseries for perennial plants. Five groups of Makueni farmers plan to found local food cooperatives.

Edukans

Training lobby skills

Edukans offers a blended training of master trainers in lobby skills in Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, and Uganda. The course consists of digital content, available on the SkillEd platform, and webinars. It addresses civil society organizations, farmers groups and women self-help groups, who engage in lobbying activities. It is an add-on training to the mobilizing support training of Wilde Ganzen Foundation (Change the Game Academy) within the Civic Engagement Alliance. The Civic Engagement Alliance was a joint collaboration of local and international NGO’s, funded by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

ICT training for teachers

While there is strong global growth in internet use, the ability to connect remains profoundly unequal. Recent data from the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) show that an estimated 2.9 billion people, that is 37 per cent of the world’s population, have never used the internet – an estimated 96 per cent live in the Global South.  In 2021 only 33 per cent of the African population were online, in rural areas only 15 per cent.

According to ITU one of the major barriers in some of the world’s poorest nations is the affordability of devices and services. A second obstacle is that interfaces demand literacy and numeracy skills that many people don’t have. The fact that there is a lack of content in local languages makes it even more difficult. Public schools are rarely well equipped with laptops and other technological equipment. Many teachers were never trained to teach ICT skills.

As a consequence the African continent faces a huge digital skills gap. In many places people don’t possess even basic ICT skills (e.g., using the internet to find and apply for jobs, using mobile devices or the ability to copy and paste files). Doreen Bogdan-Martin Director, ITU Telecommunication Development Bureau, points out that poor digital literacy prevents many from getting online at all, while compromising the ability of others to get the most out of devices and services: “Poor digital literacy also exposes people to risks linked to the ‘dark side’ of connectivity: cyberattacks, scams, fake news, or harmful content.”

An opportunity to empower Africans and to alleviate poverty

The problem becomes more pressing as the demand for digital skills is constantly growing – even in those jobs that didn’t require digital skills in the past.

In 2021 the World Bank Group and the IFC (International Finance Corporation) published a study about the demand for digital skills in Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, and Rwanda. Some of the key findings were that by 2030, there will be 230 million of “digital jobs” in Sub-Saharan Africa. Some level of digital skills will be required by 50-55 percent of all jobs in Kenya, 35-45 percent of all jobs in Côte d’Ivoire, Nigeria, and Rwanda, and 20-25 percent of jobs in Mozambique.

While the digital skill gap limits economic opportunities and impedes development, closing it presents outstanding opportunities to alleviate poverty and to empower (young) Africans.

One of the projects that aims to make ICT training in Africa easier accessible, is the “Digital pedagogy – Blended training for instructors” course in Kenya, presented by Edukans International, in collaboration wit Bukura Agricultural College and SkillEd. The focus lies on delivery of training and teaching content through e-learning platforms and consist of seven modules.

Edukans

Training lobby skills

Edukans offers a blended training of master trainers in lobby skills in Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, and Uganda.

The course consists of digital content, available on the SkillEd platform, and webinars.

It addresses civil society organizations, farmers groups and women self-help groups, who engage in lobbying activities.

It is an add-on training to the mobilizing support training of Wilde Ganzen Foundation (Change the Game Academy) within the Civic Engagement Alliance. The Civic Engagement Alliance was a joint collaboration of local and international NGO’s, funded by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Edukans

Training lobby skills

Edukans offers a blended training of master trainers in lobby skills in Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, and Uganda. The course consists of digital content, available on the SkillEd platform, and webinars.

It addresses civil society organizations, farmers groups and women self-help groups, who engage in lobbying activities. It is an add-on training to the mobilizing support training of Wilde Ganzen Foundation (Change the Game Academy) within the Civic Engagement Alliance. The Civic Engagement Alliance was a joint collaboration of local and international NGO’s, funded by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Ukarimu

Ukarimu: training for tourism

The African tourism and hospitality sector faces a dilemma. It has the potential to employ millions of young people but lacks relevant and high-quality training opportunities. Ukarimu, a Swahili word for hospitality and since 2019 also an education program, wants to change this by providing tourism and hospitality training materials freely accessible.

Ukarimu started with practical classes till Covid-19 hit and emphasized the need of additional digital training. Therefor the Ukarimu app, which is freely downloadable, was developed.

African Clean Energy SEMiLLA sanitation Dutch Relief Alliance (DRA) Ghetto Smart WUR Outside Inc

Circular Refugee Camps

The challenge is big, but the prospect is promising: By using circular solutions in refugee camps to deal with food production, hygiene and waste management, the life quality of inhabitants will drastically improve.

Circular refugee camps will, not only for themselves but also for the local communities, produce biogas, compost, timber wood and fruit, they will create job and learning opportunities and contribute to environment protection by regreening and producing less waste.

The situation

At the end of June 2022 the UNHCR estimated that around 103 million people have been forcibly displaced from their homes due to persecution, conflict, violence, human rights violations, and events seriously disturbing public order. This is an increase of 13.6 million (+15 per cent) compared to the end of 2021. There is no up-to-date data about how many people currently live in refugee camps, but in April 2021 it was already around 6,6 million.

Most refugee camps are extremely challenging for the inhabitants who face overcrowding places, poor sanitary conditions, physical and mental health problems, financial difficulties, and food insecurity. Many kids and teenagers that live in refugee camps don’t get sufficient, if any, education. Refugee camps also put big pressures on the natural resources which can lead to conflicts between the local communities and the new settlers.

The challenge of providing safe and sustainable refuge for everyone in need is becoming more pressing than ever. Numbers of refugees are likely to skyrocket in the near future: The Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) estimates that 1.2 billion people in 31 countries could be displaced by 2050 only due to the effects of climate change.

The project

In 2019 Wageningen University & Research started a collaboration with SkillEd, African Clean Energy, SEMiLLA sanitation, Dutch Relief Alliance (DRA), Ghetto Smart, WUR and Outside Inc. The mission: Creating a safe and sustainable refuge that utilizes the potential of existing and innovative circular solutions in refugee camps and migrant cities. For now, the focus region is East-Africa with Uganda as pilot country.

Uganda has a long history of hosting refugees and is today one of the top five hosting countries in the world. Around 1,5 million refugees, mainly from South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Burundi, live in Uganda today. Many live in so-called settlements, co-existing with the hosting communities. While the country is known for its hospitality and progressive refugee laws, there are several problems, including conflicts over access to firewood, environmental degradation and land disputes.

Circular Refugee Camps will convert human fecal matter into sustainable energy in the form of biogas (for cooking and lighting), that can be used by refugees, people residing near the settlement and institutions (schools, health center etc.).

To close the loop, the fecal sludge is treated in a biodigester to create hygienic and nutrient-rich compost. Part of the compost can be sold to farmers in the area, part will be used in the attached tree nursery, where fruit, timber wood and reforestation tree seedlings are grown for the (local) forestry market contributing to the creation of jobs, capturing CO2, producing oxygen, and boosting economic growth locally. One of the goals is to plant at least 700.000 trees per year per project location.

This circular approach has several advantages:

• People (especially women and girls) don’t have to walk great distances to gather firewood if affordable biogas is available
• Using biogas instead of firewood also decreases the risks for conflicts, the environmental degradation and CO2 in the atmosphere caused by deforestation for firewood
• It reduces health risks associated with air pollution caused by cooking using firewood
• It decreases groundwater pollution caused by pit latrines
• It creates employment and business opportunities for the local communities (operating the treatment plant, transportation, selling biogas, compost, and tree seedings, crop growing)

New technologies and education go hand in hand

The project follows a sustainable approach. The biodigesters are built by SEMiLLA in the Netherlands and shipped to Uganda, but operation and maintenance of the system will be taken over by trained local personnel.

Blended training programs (about operating biodigesters, bottling biogas, composting, managing tree nurseries and others) are provided by SkillEd.
A percentage of proceeds from sales of products is used to cover costs of operation and maintenance; local population reaps the benefits of the innovation.

Living lab: Imvepi refugee settlement

The start of the project was delayed due to Covid 19. Currently the waste treatment plant is being built in Imvepi refugee settlement, the project is expected to be up-and-running not later than March 2023.

The project will be a Living Lab for research and innovation. Using the Impevi project as an example, the integrated approach will be replicated in ten more refugee settlements in Uganda (2024 and after) and in other countries, too.

Want to know more about the background? Here you can read the research paper (L.L. de Rooij, M. Stuiver, Wageningen University and Research) about “Circular Refugee Camps: Co-creating meaningful business”