By Tony Kwame Ansah, Jr
7/26/2019
Almost every single day there’s a startup enterprise coming out of Africa. Within the many African businesses, there are some worth highlighting and shedding light on. The following is one that uses an innovative voucher system to carry out agricultural projects in African countries.
Seekewa is an online platform that allows internet users and companies to financially support small farmers in African countries via voucher system. This mobile funding app was founded by Serge Zamblé and Fred Zamblé of Ivory Coast. Their voucher system is helping to support and encourage agricultural entrepreneurship throughout Continental Africa.
In 2016, Seekewa officially launched as an online platform dedicated to financing small agricultural projects in African countries. Essentially, they allow individuals and companies to finance small agricultural projects via the Internet. Project details featured on their website allow visitors to better understand the agricultural project that they are financially supporting.
Seekewa integrates all actors of agricultural chain into their platform. They support the project leader with financing, the supply of goods and services related to the project, technical supervision, payment solutions, to the complete sale of produce. Everything is planned by Seekewa to ensure success of the projects for their small farmers.
The Seekewa team aims to solve problems faced by farmers, such as access to financing, financial exclusion, post-harvest losses and gender inequality. Their innovative crowdfunding platform allows any Internet user and organization around the globe to financially support the projects of these farmers.
Seekewa has reinvented the traditional crowdfunding model by combining it with an electronic voucher system valued in points and grants them to small agricultural projects sourced out on their platform. This innovative approach makes it possible to provide goods and services directly by credit instead of needing money to obtain them.
Their unique online platform acts as a trusted third party that brings together all kinds of contributors who can secure and maximize the impact of their funds, farmers who have access to necessary resources, and consumers are able to pay for high quality local products at fair market price.
Once a project is successful and the crops are sold, Seekewa pays the project expenses and transfers all profits to the farmers. Individual contributors can also purchase these fresh food products at discounted prices. On the backend, Seekewa makes its money from the sale of electronic vouchers to organizations and the sale of products from harvest.
Essentially, Seekewa makes consumers actors in the production of their own fresh food, by allowing them to choose and finance farmers directly through their platform.
The platform is free of charge for the contributors and the farmers. Seekewa addresses the living conditions of farmers in rural areas and the improvement of the purchasing power of the lower and middle classes via a circular economy.
Since Seekewa went live in December 2017, hundreds of projects have been published on their platform, with a good portion of them receiving the required funding. Users of this platform include the UN International Office for Migration.
In closing, their voucher system is helping to carry out agricultural projects for all involved participants. This is significant because it allows for food to be produced and put on the tables of farmers and funders of such projects. That is, tremendous impact to say the least, especially with the abundance of natural resources in Africa!
References:
https://www.igdleaders.org/member-spotlight-seekewa-unique-approach-fertile-financing/
http://disrupt-africa.com/2019/06/these-brothers-are-boosting-ivorian-agriculture-from-farm-to-fork/
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tony K Ansah, Jr., M.P.A. is a self-published author and a social entrepreneur based in Rhode Island, U.S.A. He has written and published several books and content via poems, quotes, fiction, non-fiction, blogs and articles. Tony is also the founder and owner of Ansah Africa, a consulting and marketing startup that connects donors in the U.S.A. with nonprofits in Africa to solve global problems, which was established in 2017.
Copyright © 2019 by Tony Kwame Ansah Jr
All rights reserved. No part of this published content may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of Tony Kwame Ansah Jr, the original publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to Tony Kwame Ansah Jr, the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permission Request,” at the address below.
Email: owusu@tonyansah.com