Project operations are structured along the lines of its objectives but within a practical Activities context. There are five major Activities:
Agribusiness Completion:
This Activity relates to Objective 1 of the project which is to provide Agribusiness Support. ENABLE TAAT is committed to establishing at least 39 “quick win” youth-led enterprises in 2018. These emergent agribusinesses are expected to become self-sufficient and commercially viable within one year, a process referred to as “Agribusiness Completion.” In preparation for this activity, numerous agribusiness plans were assembled, summarized into a standardized application format and presented through a series of business pitches to a panel of experts. A total of 51 applications were received for Agribusiness Completion from Agripreneurs in five countries (DR Congo, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania and Uganda) and 34 pitches were delivered to the panel (Review, grading and recommendations were based upon key business element for success. Funds were disbursed to the identified businesses as loans and grants while proper monitoring and tracking of the business will be done to ensure successful implementation. The identified businesses have commenced operations.
Agribusiness Incubation:
Agribusiness incubation is the bedrock of experiential learning and agribusiness skills development within the Agripreneur Movement. Agribusiness Incubation is closely associated with IYA Core Capacity Development and the application of its training tools. During Year 1, this pathway engages seven new Agripreneur youth groups in seven countries, and a system of agribusiness orientation and mentorship in support of these actions. ENABLE-TAAT will support the establishment of new agribusiness incubations at seven locations as guided by opportunities. In many cases, these incubations will be nested into ENABLE-TAAT country projects and in others result from a specific call for assistance by national partners. Each new agribusiness incubations shall operate across a fairly narrow set of TAAT Value Chains based upon special advantage. Each incubation shall consist of 12-20 or more interns at any time that are divided into sub-groups. The identified locations include; Cameroon, Benin, Kenya, Liberia, Madagascar, Sudan, and Togo. These facilities also operate as technology and innovation centers for young people on specific commodity value chains and in response to directed needs of TAAT. Agribusiness orientation and mentorship are especially important along this pathway. IYA has developed multimedia training materials on agribusiness training and its partner youth groups have assembled a network of mentors, mostly drawn from the private sector.
Youth Advocacy:
Youth advocacy assumes a number of forms. It includes participation in the implementation and design of ENABLE Youth country projects, and the inclusion of TAAT value chains and technologies within them. It collaborates with other youth empowerment projects and fora. It documents the achievements of youth and presents them in inspirational and replicable fashion. It mobilizes resources so that ENABLE TAAT can be expanded. These forms of advocacy will be conducted in 19 countries. The countries scheduled for advocacy campaigns are Benin, Burundi, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, DR Congo, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda and Zambia.
It includes participation, presentation and exhibition in a series of youth fora. It is intended to guide others toward agribusiness incubation and youth-led enterprise development. It crafts partnership with other agencies including the donor community. This leads to a series of country-level ENABLE TAAT “roadshow” promotional events and participation in in-country planning meetings, usually in association with other Compacts operating within a particular country. This advocacy also includes regular updates distributed across a variety of social media, including a series of electronic fora, intended in part to broaden pathway impacts to additional countries.
Youth Registration:
Within the TAAT Framework Document (Component 2: Regional Technology Delivery Infrastructure (RTDI) the ENABLE TAAT Compact is specifically charged with empowering 5000 youth during Year 1. To document this target, the M&E Leader is charged with developing a database that provides information on these youth and what sort of benefits they receive along the value chains. The database itself must be completed through the activities in ENABLE TAAT components in many countries. This requires that the M&E Leader must develop a beneficiary’s database template for distribution to all existing and forming Agripreneur groups through the liaison officers for filling and electronic submission for compilation. Once compiled, the database is used in three ways; 1) it is reported to the Clearinghouse M&E Officer for inclusion into larger TAAT reports, 2) it provides data for development of the ENABLE TAAT report and 3) it is used as the basis to form recommendations on improved operations by IYA, its partner Agripreneur Groups and individual youth agribusiness operators.
Food Basket Outreach:
Great opportunity exists to advance community nutrition through business incubation and outreach related to TAAT priority interventions. Food Basket Outreach is a major mechanism that links ENABLE TAAT and its partner groups to advances among the nine TAAT Commodity Value Chains. This particularly relates to Germplasm Acquisition and Good Management Practice. Our approach is to develop a network of nutritional food basket demonstrations and promote them through outreach actions that both disseminate TAAT’s improved varieties to vulnerable persons and offer them to the youth-led agribusiness community. This activity will be implemented at 19 locations in 11 countries during 2018 and later be extended to seven additional countries through advocacy and agribusiness support.
