Nourishing Africa, Inclusive Business Action Network (iBAN) and Generation Africa manage three distinct digital platforms providing ecosystem support to entrepreneurs and practitioners.

iBAN is a global initiative supporting the scaling and replication of inclusive business models. Through its strategic approach iBAN supports companies with tailormade investment readiness programmes and develops national inclusive business policy strategies with policymakers. On a global level iBAN manages the largest online knowledge platform on inclusive business. iBAN creates a space where evidence-based knowledge transforms into learning and new partnerships. With its focus on promoting the upscale of inclusive business models and consequently improving the lives of the poor, iBAN is actively contributing to the achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

Similarly, through its Go-Gettaz platform, Generation Africa provides education, mentorship, and investment networks to agri-food entrepreneurs as they grow tech-savvy agri-ventures. Through their GoGettaz Agripreneur Prize competition, the platform also rewards two scalable and impactful youth-led businesses with $50,000 to continue to drive tangible social impact.

Nourishing Africa, a digital knowledge and membership hub for agripreneurs, provides information about data, funding, career opportunities, and other resources for food and agriculture entrepreneurs across the continent. Moreover, leveraging ICT, telecommunication, data and innovation, Nourishing Africa, in partnership with the Mastercard Foundation and the U.S. African Development Foundation (USADF), have launched the Entrepreneurship Support Program (ESP). The program supports 2,000 MSMEs across the Nigerian agriculture and food landscapes to rebuild and strengthen their businesses through a 4-step program aimed at directly aiding these MSMEs with training, financing and support for the stabilizing and scaling of resilient businesses that can withstand future shocks. The ESP targets youth-led micro and small-scale enterprises engaged in critical food, cash crops, and livestock value chains from inputs, primary production, processing, logistics and storage, and distribution in eleven states in Nigeria. Besides, this program serves as a pipeline for these businesses to scale and meet the criteria necessary to become Nourishing Africa members, thus ensuring they continue to receive ongoing support. Programs providing a combination of capacity building, financing, ongoing support, and precise sustainability projections such as the Entrepreneur Support Program need to be replicated across the continent.

The goal to achieve and sustain food security on the continent is largely dependent on how successful SMEs in the food sector are in rebuilding and scaling resilient agribusinesses. Comprehensive approaches to ecosystem support and resources are crucial to ensuring that these SMEs, which produce, market and handle over 80 percent of all of Africa’s food, are sufficiently supported.