Rural Entrepreneurship Africa

Rural entrepreneurship has the potential to drive innovations that can reduce poverty, increase access to food and create employment. For this to happen, actors in agri-food value chains need to trust each other. However, local agri-food value chains are almost always characterised by protectionist behaviour resulting in very high marketing costs and a stalemate, instead of by a drive for positive change and development. This course is focused on breaking the deadlock these value chains are in and hands you the tools to do that.

What will you learn?

Upon completion of the course you will:

• Have become sensitive to imbalances within agri-food value chains and how these issues can be addressed;
• Have strengthened your capacity to promote rural wealth creation;
• Have strengthened your competence in the area of market access of microl entrepreneurs;
• Have the ability to identify pro-poor, smallholder inclusive and/or gender-friendly agribusiness development opportunities;
• Be able to apply the tools that support private sector driven innovations in agri-food value chains

Course programme in more detail

Trust among actors in agri-food chains is often not very high. This is caused by the low number of transactions between actors of agri-food value chains, the long distance between producer and end markets, and the general lack of understanding and, therefore, appreciation of each other’s roles. In these situations, all chain actors first of all try to protect their own interests as much as possible. As a result, opportunistic behaviour among chain actors is rampant, and cooperation virtually non-existent. The costs of marketing in these types of fresh produce chains are extremely high, resulting in a combination of very high price levels and very low margins at almost all levels of the chain.

How to register:

For whom is this course?

The course is intended for midcareer professionals of government departments, NGOs and civil society organisations, businesses, development agencies, universities and colleges for higher education, and individual consultants working in the domain of private sector and/or market driven development.
To register, please visit the following link

The Application Procedure

1. Register for the course of your interest by clicking the ‘apply’ button on the webpage of this course. A registration form will open;
2. Fill in the required fields of the registration form. Please note to write your date of birth without a zero (e.g. 1-5-1980 instead of 01-05-1980);
3. Before you submit, check your details on the final page of the registration form;
4. After submitting, you will receive a confirmation email. Make sure to directly click on the link in the email to confirm your registration. Without your confirmation, your registration cannot be processed;
5. If you apply as an OKP or MSP-scholarship candidate, you will receive a registration letter for the scholarship at the beginning of the scholarship cycle.
6. If you apply as a self-funded participant: we will forward your request for acceptance to the course leader. This can take some time as it depends on the coordinators' schedule (1-3 weeks);
7. If you’re accepted into the course programme, we’ll send you an admission letter by e-mail;
8. You receive all required travel documents from us after you are selected for the scholarship (OKP/MSP-scholarship candidates) or when we’ve received your payment (self-funded participant).

Courses are currently online

Our courses are currently online. Check the course details more information about the online course format.