Six young Nigerian entrepreneurs have received N120 million for emerging winners of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) Zero Hunger Sprint competition.
The competition called on Nigeria’s innovators to bring forward concrete ideas that can help find solutions to hunger as the UN agency seeks to achieve zero hunger in Africa’s most populous nation by 2030.
Development Diaries understands that the innovations of the beneficiaries are targeted at improving food production, packaging and distribution.
Jerry Oche, with his Zowasel product, was rewarded with N42 million.
Oche’s Zowasel is an online marketplace and crop testing service that connects smallholder farmers with premium buyers.
The next big winners, according to a statement issued by the UN agency, were Adepeju Jaiyeoba, Tosin Ayodele, and Ayoola Dominic, who won N21 million each.
Jaiyeoba’s Colourful Giggles is a natural and affordable baby food company, while Ayodele’s Agrorite helps smallholder farmers to access credit and data-driven advisory services.
For his part, Dominic’s Koolboks is an eco-friendly refrigeration solution powered by solar energy and equipped with payment technology.
Meanwhile, Luther Lawoyin’s Principally, a digital food cooperative enabling families or small businesses to share bulk food items or buy food in bulk directly from farmers or wholesalers, and Michael Ogundare’s Crop2cash, which creates reliable credit scores and risk profiles for farmers to unlock finance for improved productivity and income, were rewarded with N10 million and N5 million respectively.
The competition was organised in partnership with Nigeria’s Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, with support from private investors.
‘The Zero Hunger Roundtable is a platform facilitated by WFP Nigeria and the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs in Nigeria, where we bring everyone together – the private sector, development agencies, government – to look at collective solutions that can contribute to zero hunger in the country’, the head of WFP Nigeria’s capacity strengthening and policy coherence unit, Fabienne Moust, said.
‘It was created as a response to the Covid-19 pandemic, but it goes way beyond that. There are lots of sustainable solutions needed for Nigeria’.
WFP and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) had raised concerns in March 2021 that more than 174 million people in the world, including Nigeria, needed urgent food assistance.
Source: Premium Times
Photo source: WFP
