{"id":2116,"date":"2020-05-22T10:01:18","date_gmt":"2020-05-22T14:01:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/connexuscorporation.com\/?page_id=2116"},"modified":"2022-10-20T12:27:41","modified_gmt":"2022-10-20T16:27:41","slug":"feed-the-future-senegal-nafoore-warsaaji-gardens-of-abundance","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/connexuscorporation.com\/feed-the-future-senegal-nafoore-warsaaji-gardens-of-abundance\/","title":{"rendered":"Feed the Future Senegal Nafoore Warsaaji (Gardens of Abundance)"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

Feed the Future Senegal Nafoore Warsaaji<\/em> (Gardens of Abundance) Activity (2020-2025). <\/strong>As prime contractor, Connexus is leading this five-year, $12.5M activity. The activity focuses on establishing private sector engagements (PSEs) with leading agribusinesses, producer organizations, and local small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to create six \u201chorticulture hubs\u201d in different regions of Senegal. These hubs are local networks of more than 37 anchor firms and SMEs working with more than 25,000 smallholder farmers, 58% of whom are women. The hubs provide rural farmers and agribusinesses with greater access to input technologies, agricultural support services, finance, insurance products, and post-harvest infrastructure as well as increased opportunities for networking, partnership, deal-making, learning, and mentoring so that more smallholders can participate in commercial horticulture.<\/p>\r\n

Connexus is collaborating with NCBA CLUSA\u2019s Feed the Future Kawolor<\/em> Resilience Project to link more women and young farmers to the hubs. Connexus conducted a comprehensive Gender and Youth Barrier Analysis and Integration Plan at the outset of the project to understand the particular challenges faced by these groups in undertaking commercial horticulture.\u00a0 In the first two years, the six hubs have grown to include more than 13,000 women and youth.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n

To date, the project has facilitated over $9.3M in financing for hub actors and established nine PSEs using $1.2M in co-investment grants that have leveraged more than $10M in private sector co-investments in hub activities and infrastructure. Smallholders have marketed more than 31,000 MT of horticultural produce at the hubs worth $13.8M in the first two and a half years. Ultimately, Nafoore<\/em> Warsaaji<\/em> aims to empower 50,000 smallholder farmers to enter commercial horticulture and increase their gross margins by 50% within five years.<\/p>\r\n

Connexus is also applying an Antifragile Market Systems Approach<\/em> to the hubs to ensure that they can thrive in the context of continual stresses and shocks and rapidly pivot to embrace new market opportunities or prepare for emerging threats. The Connexus approach assesses and strengthens five key dimensions of antifragility in market systems: innovation, optionality, learning, trust, and diversity.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\r\n

Examples of significant innovations that Nafoore Warsaaji <\/em>is facilitating with lead horticultural market actors include:<\/p>\r\n