Development Ratings

Africa Now establishes replicable, scalable income generating activities for smallholders in rural districts where the economy is mainly informal. The model results in group bargaining power, formalised contracts and prices, regularity of payment, feedback on quality and consistency, and better control of inputs. Programmes include:

Kenya:

• Flowers: Working with the Kenya Flower Council, low-income farmers are helped to grow high-value flowers. Farmers are linked to a flower exporter and a fair price is agreed. Micro-finance loans from an MFI help farmers buy equipment and seeds, and business training helps with budgeting and planning. On Fairtrade joint bodies of flower plantation management and elected worker representatives, Africa Now trains the worker representatives to develop the skills for project planning and implementation.

• Beekeeping: This is a low input, high value method of increasing and stabilising income. The originally funded EU project has ended but Africa Now is replicating the model, including as a school enterprise.

• Clean water and health: Working with a local NGO, artisans are trained to build water and sanitation facilities. Workshops help local groups to provide the services themselves under a business model – activities include solid waste management or commercial tree nurseries using surplus water.

• Dairy farming: Working with the Kenyan Agricultural Research Institute, Africa Now has established a goat loan scheme: the loan is paid back by passing on the first three kids born to other farmers. The model is being replicated across western Kenya. Other livestock and dairy farmers are given the technical and enterprise skills to help them get access to the dairy market.

• Fishing: Local institutions and fishing associations are helped to provide their members with financial services, fish management advice, and a hire-purchase scheme for fishing equipment.

• Village Banks: Training is provided on banking, accounting, and financial and organisational skills for small borrowers to set up businesses. The village banks are owned and managed by their members.

Zimbabwe:

• Devil’s Claw: Africa Now helps small producers take advantage of the market for devil’s claw (a herb popular in the West as an anti-inflammatory) while also protecting the environment. The first sales have taken place, proving the model and the market, and the pilot is being progressed.

• Dairy farming: On top of the nutritional benefits for the young, the elderly and HIV sufferers, milk production supplies regular year round income that is more stable than arable farming. Dairy production is attractive as a long-term business venture, although the market is suffering currently.

Zambia:

• Chilli peppers: This programme promotes chilli pepper production as an effective deterrent against crop-destroying elephants and as an additional way of earning income. Demonstration plots of chilli hedges have been running for two years. Chillis are sold at fixed, fair prices to a local company.

• High-value organic vegetables: This new project provides farmers with cash crop diversification and aims to supply the regional up-market hotel sector with high-value, local produce.

Ethical audits: An ‘ethical audit’ maps and analyses the impact that a business has on its stakeholders, particularly the working conditions for producers and workers (such as working hours, or avoiding child or ‘sweatshop’ labour). National and international codes and standards are applied. Recommendations are made for continuous improvement plans. Major businesses use ethical audits to get accepted by the communities they work in and to increase their competitiveness. Local producers can identify ethical products that could be exported at a premium price. Audits have been carried out for well-known UK and US clients, including GAP, Sears, and Marks & Spencer. Sectors audited include horticulture, tea, coffee, textiles, sugar, and cocoa. As fees are generated from the services, the benefit is both improved local labour standards and the fee income being ploughed back into the Africa Now’s programmes, helping additional beneficiaries.