News

Sept Etoiles Beauty Centre is comprised of a group of women entrepreneurs who were trained in making and using organic natural beauty products through SWITCH Africa Green support.

Comprising of 90 members, the entrepreneurs gained knowledge in making natural beauty products. As a result, customers have developed a preference of organic products to the inorganic products.

These entrepreneurs have created new business streams, recording good feedback from customers. They have also recorded a higher number of walk-in customers since introducing these organic products.

Euphorbeie Garden is a family enterprise that has been operational for 25 years focusing on growing exotic flowers. They participated in the SWITCH Africa Green training on floral arrangement under the sustainable horticultural training.

As a result of implementing the various concepts from the training, they have recorded increased revenues, especially in December when there were many events. Their clients include wed- dings, and other celebrations such as funerals and church flower displays. The enterprise also uses pots made out of coconut which help retain moisture.

Ciel Textile is a large scale company based in Port Louis, Mauritius that specializes in textile production. With a daily production capacity of 25,000 pieces, the company is considered a large scale producer in the textile industry. With SWITCH Africa Green support, the company carried out a baseline to understand the type of waste available. As a result, the company noted that plastic formed a significant amount of waste. This led the management to come to the decision of halting packaging of fabric in plastic to reduce amount of plastic coming in.

Christian is a 27-year-old alumni of Centre de Formation Agricole Frere Remy, which is a SWITCH Africa Green grantee. He has participated in different trainings on sustainable agriculture with a focus on chicken rearing. After his time at Frere Remy, he did not fully grasp the respon- sibility and the skill needed to run a farm.

Manisa Hotel is a 42-room hotel situated on the west coast of the island in the Flic-en-Flac area. The hotel uses a solar energy system (45.2Kw) and solar water heaters in all rooms. In addition, they practice rain water harvesting for gardening. With SWITCH Africa Green support, the hotel has conducted a 2 step Gap analysis which mapped the current operational and sustainable production and consumption practices and identified areas of improvement.

By adopting sustainable agricultural practices, Herman Agathe has managed to increase his flock from 4 animals to 126 animals. He has pigs, goats, sheep, chicken, ducks and cows in his flock. Based in Roche Bon Dieu, Rodrigues Island, Herman is an exceptional 18-year old who has managed to reap benefits from his hard work.

Cassava is one of the major foods consumed in Ghana. It is a major contributor to food security and livelihood in rural areas. Cassava is normally processed to flour using thermal energy before it is consumed or traded. In addition, the consumption of this product in schools, urban and rural areas across the country coupled with recent high demand of the product in other West African countries, makes the product a viable business venture. The community in Adaklu produces and cooks cassava (gari) for their own consumption and for sale.

South Africa recently suffered its worst drought in recorded history, with devastating consequences for communities and wildlife in the Kruger to Canyons Biosphere, which borders the famed Kruger National Park. Utah Village is one of the villages located close to Kruger National Park. It also falls in the area that has been under quarantine for the last 15 years due to the contagious foot and mouth disease.

On the factory floor of Champion Shoes in Thika, northeast of the Kenyan capital Nairobi, company owner James Mwaura is pointing to a pile of irregularly shaped offcuts from the process of making men’s and school shoes. “This is the most important part of the business. This is money for us. Before, we used to throw it away,” Mwaura says.

‘Before’ was almost two years ago, when his business began benefitting from a European Union-funded project that is accelerating Africa’s transition to a green economy.

Fort Murchison is a tourist lodge set in the savannah landscapes in northern Uganda in the Murchison Falls National Park; it has 12 en suite units for guests. The lodge is 5km drive from the Tangi gate and lies along the Karuma – Pakwach road; it offers mid-range accommodation with provision for budget travelers on Uganda safaris.

Afri Banana Products (ABP) supports incubatees (Micro-, Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises and start-ups) and stakeholder farmers to commercialize and upscale innovations along the banana value chain. ABP also supports students to obtain hands on experience through internships and industrial attachment opportunities.

AK Oils and Fats (U) Ltd produces sunflower and soya bean crude oil from sunflower and soya bean seeds respectively. It’s a subsidiary of Mukwano Industries
(U) Ltd, a private limited company located in the Upper Nile Water Management Zone.

On engaging with SWITCH Africa Green, water efficiency was an eye opener to the operations manager who realized the need to participate in the program. This resulted in the company conducting daily monitoring for leakages throughout the entire company.

Otis Seeds deals in agribusiness including processing and selling of seeds, mainly, early germination seeds. The company buys seeds from MSMEs then processes the seeds and sells them. Otis works with various partners including the National Agricultural Research Organisation (NARO), local government, Plan international and WFP among others.

The Adwoa Youth Group concentrates on growing sesame, sunflower and chillies. It has 30 members and was founded in 2013. It operates in an area with many child mothers. The group started as a drama and acting self-help group and has previously worked with Plan International on previous projects on child mothers.

Ruwenzori Commodities Company. Rwenzori Commodities Ltd operates in Kabarole and Kyenjojo districts, where it rehabilitated and planted 2,556 hectares of tea out of 5,700 hectares of land. It has four tea factories namely, Buzirasagama, Hiima, Munobwa and Kigumba with a capacity of 200,000 Kgs of green leaf or 47,000 Kgs made tea per day.

East Africa Packaging Solutions produces customized corrugated box packaging meant for local distribution and exports. This company has benefited from 2 years of improvement on Resource Efficient and Cleaner Production (RECP) with Uganda Cleaner Production Centre (UCPC) which formed the basis of being incorporated in the Industrial Symbiosis (IS) project.

Established in 2016, Sky Fat Ltd specializes in processing hides and skin.

Upland Rice Millers processes rice on behalf of farmers in the region who execute the marketing and selling. They package the processed rice as per farmer’s specifications. The company also acts as a training centre for rice growing in Africa where they train farmers and stakeholders in the whole value chain on Resource efficiency and Cleaner Production (RECP). From previous projects, thirty thousand out growers have been trained and provided with basic machinery training including weeding machines, moisture monitoring machines, weighing scales, shears, etc.

Kabarole Grain Millers buys grains (mainly maize) from local farmers and mills it for sale in Fort Portal as well as other surrounding towns. The business premises has two rooms: one for the milling which contains the sorting and milling equipment; the other has the finished product and the office space.

On 28 October 2016, a major milestone was achieved under the policy support component of SWITCH Africa Green when the Cabinet of Mauritius agreed to implement the recommendations of the country implementation plan for the programme. In the implementation plan, agriculture, manufacturing and tourism were identified as the priority sectors for greening in Mauritius, with energy, water, eco-innovation, eco-labelling and sustainable trade as cross-cutting issues. The Cabinet’s endorsement will boost government support for sustainable consumption and production in Mauritius. 

Through the SWITCH Africa Green programme, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) partnered to deliver, for the first time, an interactive e-learning course especially tailored to the regional context of Africa.
 

The overall objective of SWITCH Africa Green is to support 6 countries in Africa to achieve sustainable development by engaging in transition towards an inclusive green economy, based on sustainable consumption and production patterns, while generating growth, creating decent jobs and reducing poverty. The objective will be achieved through support to private sector led inclusive green growth.