West Africa

When Endurance Boms first opened her small beauty shop in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, she struggled to keep track of her sales and inventory. Then, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, her sales slowed to a crawl. A TechnoServe program gave Endurance the business training and support she needs to achieve success as a Nigerian entrepreneur. Now, she can confidently maintain a reliable income source – even during a global crisis.

Sara Ollo Adico was determined to contribute to her community in Côte d’Ivoire by opening an early childhood school and nursery. Learn how participating in a TechnoServe business plan competition helped her make the leap from concept to reality.

In Benin, the cashew industry has the potential to help hundreds of thousands of small-scale farmers lift themselves out of poverty. However, poor agricultural practices often limit their productivity and incomes. TechnoServe is using remote sensing and machine learning to map cashew production and target agricultural training to farmers who need it most.

This World Food Day, we spoke with Dr. Andreas Bluethner, Director of Nutrition at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, to discuss how COVID-19 is threatening nutrition in the developing world – and how interventions such as improved food fortification can help tackle this critical challenge.

Cashew has the potential to transform Benin’s economy – and the lives of the smallholder farmers who grow it. However, many farmers lack the technical knowledge they need to get the best harvest from their cashew orchards. TechnoServe is developing a digital chatbot to help farmer trainers quickly access the information they need, allowing them to effectively support more farmers.

For women and girls in the developing world, COVID-19 is exacerbating existing inequities and creating new challenges. In Benin, women cashew farmers like Elisabeth Atchade must juggle many responsibilities, including earning money for the household while also taking on the majority of child care responsibilities. Learn how a TechnoServe program is helping women address these challenges and emerge from the crisis even stronger.

In Nigeria, nearly half the tomato harvest is lost before ever reaching consumers. Promoting the domestic cottage processing sector has the potential to significantly decrease post-harvest loss while also improving farmer livelihoods and increasing food security for vulnerable communities.

In Benin, cashew farmers are facing many challenges as they try to adapt to rapidly changing conditions due to COVID-19. We talked to Nicholas Mancus, TechnoServe’s chief of party for the BeninCajù program, to learn about the challenges these farmers are facing, how the pandemic is impacting women and men differently, and what TechnoServe is doing to help.

The BeninCajù program is working to make Benin’s cashew sector more productive, competitive, sustainable, and inclusive. Today, we’re sharing a behind-the-scenes look at the daily activities of a TechnoServe gender and access to finance specialist who works on this program.

Mariam Abdulafeez is a young businesswoman who is using the skills she learned through a TechnoServe business accelerator program to empower others to transform their businesses and their lives.