Strengthening entrepreneurship among women and youth in North Benin to reduce food insecurity

Updated on August 5th 2015:

Budget: € 877,286
Project period: March 2013 - March 2017
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Strengthening entrepreneurship among women and youth in North Benin to reduce food insecurity

NICHE-BEN-171
Sector: Food security
Budget: The maximum budget for this project is € 1,000,000.

Organisations

This project has been developed by Université de Parakou. The tender for this project expired on 29 November 2012.

Nuffic has awarded this tender to CINOP Global, which has formed a consortium with ESCA, Ecole de Management, Morocco.

Project description

This project aims to strengthen the ability of the Université de Parakou to promote the development of entrepreneurialism among women and young people, with the goal of reducing food insecurity in the municipalities of North Benin.

The specific objectives are to:

    Reinforce the institutional capacity of the university to administer the new domain of intervention in partnership with its stakeholders;
    Reinforce the academic capacity of the university and the quality of the training, expertise and services it offers.

The North of Benin is recognised as the country’s largest agricultural production region. Furthermore, craft enterprise has been developing rapidly over the past few years, especially in the processing of agricultural products. This region should logically spearhead the development of entrepreneurial enterprise in adding value to agricultural products. The statistics available on this region, however, reveal not only a low rate of creation of small businesses, especially agri-food business and craft firms, but also a chronic situation of food insecurity.

Unemployment persists among women, young people and other vulnerable people. Due to the absence of enterprises in the fields of production, harvesting, storage, processing and distribution, too little value is added to perishable agricultural products, affecting their sale on local and national markets, and resulting in their virtual absence from sub-regional and international markets.

By offering education in the field of management, economics and agriculture, the university can help graduates acquire the skills needed to support the private agricultural sector.