Create sustainable jobs for young people in Africa

Dear donors,

We would like to say a big thank you for your generous donations. Your support has enabled us to provide additional training and mentoring to our members to help them structure and enhance the visibility of their activities.  Some of the support provided through the AFFORD Business Club (ABC) include PR expert Ronke Lawal’s training sessions on How To Build Your Personal Brand and How to Get Featured by the Media. We have recently partnered with Morrisson and Foersters to provide free legal clinics to the AFFORD Business Club Members. The first session was organised as a legal seminar providing the basis on key legal areas that small and medium diaspora organisation need to pay attention to. Around 35 organisations and individuals attended the seminar and were able to get advice from 6 lawyers specialised in employment law, tax, Intellectual Property, international trade, litigation and company registration.

Our business advisers continue to provide mentoring to our members and advise them regularly on areas such as cash flows, marketing, business structure and sales, creating sustainable jobs, etc.

The support provided through the Club is also aimed at helping diaspora businesses to create jobs in Africa and to maximise the social impact.  On this, we would like to share with you all the success story of The Global Native, one of the organisation we work with.

The Global Native invest in large trucks in order to provide transport services to farmers in rural areas enabling them to move their products faster to more profitable markets. With The Global Native’s trucks, farmers can transport greater quantity of products at cheaper prices, transport their goods to the markets quicker, therefore increasing revenue and improving their livelihood. 

AFFORD awarded The Global Native a grant as part of the Diaspora Business Planning Competition in 2017 and since then, we have provided them with business advice and mentoring in the UK and in Zimbabwe. Over a period of 12 months, The Global Native has already made impressive progress. The grant and the business coaching provided by our advisers has enabled them to scale up their work, buying a 40 tonne truck and providing services to more local farmers. On top of AFFORD’s grant, The Global Native raised further investment from the diaspora through their Enaleni platform and have bought 3 additional trucks, creating a total of 23 new jobs. The Global Native works with Turning Matabeleland Green, who have trained over 10,000 farmers in chicken production and tomato growing in the southern region of Zimbabwe.

Na Ncube, Founder and Director at Global Native has found the support from AFFORD paramount in growing the enterprise and stated:

“AFFORD’s grant and business advice has helped us generate 100% increase in sales which would have been difficult without the coaching and extra injection of capital. Business expansion needs capital, and for most diaspora businesses this is a limiting factor in expanding our enterprises.”