Clean Water, Sanitation, Hygiene: Empowering local governments to improve access - NaijaAgroNet

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Access to clean water, sanitation, and hygiene is essential for human health and well-being. The Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6 is about "clean water and sanitation for all".

However, in many developing countries, these necessities remain out of reach for a significant portion of the population, particularly those living in suburban and rural areas. The popular thinking is that local governments can play a critical role in scaling up interventions to improve access to water, sanitation, and hygiene.

Over 1m African children’s lives improved by local social entrepreneurs

NaijaAgroNet:

Over one million African children have benefited from social enterprise development on the continent in the last five years, reports NaijaAgroNet.

According to a new report released by Reach for Change Africa, a non-profit organization, also reported that over 300 early-stage social entrepreneurs were supported to develop organizations that are improving the lives of children, youth and women in 7 African countries.

NaijaAgroNet gathered, Reach for Change Africa is marking its 5th anniversary themed “Accelerating Impact. Driving Change”, 

Since it was first launched in Accra, Ghana in 2012, Reach for Change Africa has provided crucial business development support for social entrepreneurs who, in turn, used their social businesses to impact over one million children. As a result, over 435,000 African children were protected from mental abuse and threats, over 308,000 children were provided with high quality education, and over 156,000 children were supported to develop and live healthy lives.

“The social enterprise movement is really starting to take off in Africa, and we are honoured to be a part of this movement for change,” said Amma Lartey, Reach for Change Africa’s Regional Director. “With the right supports, social entrepreneurs have the potential to lead Africa’s development and impact millions along the way.”

Reach for Change Africa is a non-profit organization that runs incubators, accelerators and other customized programs to help local social entrepreneurs develop sustainable organizations that impact the lives of children, youth and women.

Additionally, the report showed a number of social entrepreneurs from the 7 countries where Reach for Change Africa operates, explaining how the organization’s programs helped them to develop their social ventures.

“Being in the Incubator has helped me develop a scalable model,” said Carolyne Ekyarisiima, the founder of Apps & Girls in Tanzania. Apps & Girls is a social enterprise that is bridging the gender gap in ICT through coding clubs, workshops, exhibitions, hackathons, bootcamps and competitions for girls and young women. Since joining the Reach for Change Incubator, Ms. Ekyarisiima has scaled her organization from just one location to 21 clubs in Dar es Salaam.

“This year, I spoke with my mentor at Reach for Change about the possibility of franchising my social enterprise and got great feedback. This led me to apply for the NEXTGEN franchising competition and because of the great influence and impact of the Reach for Change Incubator, I was among the winners! Now I am looking into scaling Apps & Girls across all of Tanzania and other African countries,” she added.

The Reach for Change Incubator also helped James Kofi Annan build a social enterprise that’s fighting child-trafficking in Ghana.

Isaac Oyimah/GEE

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Climate change mars coffee production in Tanzania

 NaijaAgroNet

Farmers in Tanzania have abandoned the production of coffee and cotton due  mainly to changes in local climate and resorted to the planting of more lucrative vegetables and flowers as temperatures rise and rainfall becomes less predictable, reports NaijaAgroNet

Ludovick Meela, a farmer from Tanzania’s northern Kilimanjaro region told reporters that “Coffee beans are no longer as profitable, as my harvests keep on falling, I need fast-growing crops I can sell for a quick income,” he stated.

"When my children were growing up, coffee was everything to me," he told journalists "I got a lot of income from it, which enabled me to gain economically, but all that is history." 

Information reaching NaijaAgroNet showed that in Tanzania, scientists have attributed the drop in arabica coffee yields to a rise in nighttime temperatures in recent decades.

The strain to Tanzania’s cash crops is the latest sign that climate change is altering how and where food is produced around the world.

In Honduras, banana farmers are seeing yields decline amid fierce cold snaps and erratic rain patterns. India’s wheat and rice crops are suffering from hotter weather, and in the U.S. West, enduring drought has caused the beef-cattle herd to shrink to its lowest level in more than 60 years, NaijaAgroNet learnt.

Cyriacus Nnaj/GEE

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E-commerce to attract more entrepreneurial talents

  NaijaAgroNet

The China’s Agriculture Ministry has invested hugely on e-commerce with the hope of boosting more entrepreneurial talents to the local communities, NaijaAgroNet reports.

The new e-commerce scheme which NaijaAgroNet learnt, is having a major beneficial impact on the countryside is designed to help farmers collectively sell their products to larger markets.

"Before, it wasn't really worth me coming here to cultivate the Tea Oil. We'd maybe come five or six times a year. Now we're replanting all the time, and we come every month," said Zhu Qianhuang, a local farmer. Mr Zhu stated that he could not keep up with the demand for the Tea Oil.

 Qianhuang, NaijaAgroNet gathered, explained the benefits of the scheme further to reporters,  “this Camellia wood in Southeast China was once overgrown and unused. The tree produces Tea-Oil. Since 2011, the wood has been brought back to life, by local farmers. The revival is mainly because of rural e-commerce schemes, introduced by the local government.

 
Under the scheme, farmers in the area sell their products collectively, through larger agents. Wholesale orders are placed online from across the country.

"Rural poverty is caused by three factors - lack of skills, lack of information, and lack of incentive. If people group together, skills and resources can be shared. Right now, we have over 120 companies within our E-Commerce zone. That, NaijaAgroNet learnt, includes over eighty families, either employed or running their own businesses," said Ning Weisheng, Ningdu County Commerce Bureau.

Cyriacus Nnaji, GEE

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