With 237,000 jobs created and nearly 100,000 youth beneficiaries across 18 countries, the ENABLE Youth Programme is a clear testament to how Africa’s human capital can be unleashed to transform African agriculture.
This flagship initiative of the African Development Bank exemplifies the 2025 Annual Meetings theme, “Making Africa’s Capital Work Better for Africa’s Development,” by converting the continent’s demographic dividend into economic opportunities. Designed to create 300,000 agribusinesses and empower young entrepreneurs with both skills and financing, the Empowering Novel Agri-Business-Led Employment (ENABLE) Youth Programme, launched in 2016, demonstrates how strategic investment in youth-led enterprises can accelerate agricultural transformation across the continent.
While smallholder farming contributes 80 percent of the continent’s food production, and women constitute a large majority of the labour force, many of the farmers struggle to achieve optimal productivity and sustainability. Often, this is a result of inadequate capital. It is therefore necessary to foster access to finance for women in agriculture in Africa. This is not only critical to achieve food security but also to increase the impact of women in the agriculture value chains.
Two agripreneurs testify to how financing for their agribusinesses is benefitting local communities.
Faith Timona Mumo is the co-founder and CEO of Iviani Farm Limited, based in Kenya. Her company purchases fresh produce from local farmers, including mangoes, bananas, pineapples and leafy vegetables, and processes them into dried crisps—extending their shelf life from just a few days to more than 24 months.
Explaining the idea behind her business, Mumo said: “Fruits and vegetables are highly perishable, and their quality deteriorates rapidly after harvest. They are also susceptible to pest infestation and decay due to poor postharvest practices.”
Up to 80 percent of fresh produce is lost every year during harvest, transport, and marketing, Mumo explains. “In addition, postharvest loss forces farmers to sell their produce to brokers, middlemen and other buyers at the lowest prices available.”
Iviani Farm also practises aquaculture in arid and semi-arid regions, supporting farmers to start their own fish farms. Interested farmers can take a farm tour to witness the farm hatchery and fishponds, design, even providing quality fish seeds (fingerlings) to farmers.
In 2022, Mumo received an interest-free loan from the African Development Bank’s ENABLE Youth Programme, which empowered her to provide technical support and assistance to farmers on best practices in aquaculture and postharvest loss reduction.
“I used the funds to construct additional ponds, purchase a grow-out greenhouse, install a solar system to meet all the energy requirements of the hatchery operation, and implement a modern water aquaculture system for water conservation. These investments allowed my team to double our fingerling production capacity, enabling us to meet the growing demand for quality fingerlings, both locally and across the country,” Mumo said.
“With the right investment, agri-SMEs can transform food systems, enhance small-scale farmers’ resilience to shocks, pivot their business models in response to crises, innovate and generate economic opportunities in rural and urban areas,” ENABLE Youth Programme Coordinator, Edson Mpyisi said.
For Mumo, agriculture can be a gateway to financial freedom for women stimulated by human capital development and capacity building on best agriculture practices.
“I would encourage African women to explore opportunities in agriculture, particularly in sectors like aquaculture, which offers significant potential for growth and income generation,” she adds. So far, the company supports close to 5,000 smallholder farmers in Kenya.
Just like Mumo, Washington Maina, also received an interest-free loan from the ENABLE Youth Programme. As the founder of Centro Energy Limited, a company specialising in aquaculture, energy, and environment, Maina used the funds to rehabilitate his fish hatchery.
“We are now an authenticated fish hatchery, able to meet demand in the region, thanks to the loan,” Maina said. “Our company has the capacity to produce 120,000 tilapia and 60,000 African catfish fingerlings monthly.”
The Bank’s Ten-Year Strategy (2024-2033) has identified youth as a cross-cutting priority, which Mpyisi said will result in increased investments by the Bank in youth empowerment in the coming years.
Source: AfDB