WIDU promotes business ideas in Africa
On the platform, members of the African diaspora in Germany, Austria, France and Switzerland can apply with friends and family from participating African countries for the promotion of their business ideas. The focus is on micro and small businesses. The prerequisite is that the project partners already know each other and must be willing to invest an amount of their own in the local business. In addition to financial support from the diaspora, funded entrepreneurs receive the WIDU grant and free business coachings.
The WIDU Platform is an initiative of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), implemented by the Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH.
Currently, WIDU supports business start-ups in Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, Togo, Ethiopia (from Q3 2021) and Tunisia (from Q4 2021), providing on-site coaching and grants for promising projects.
Food for the community in Kenya
Aweke Farmers
"My goal is to make products that help my community," is how entrepreneur Judy Kageni explains her project. "Aweke Farmers" is about livestock and cow milk production.
Despite the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, Judy wants to use the WIDU funding to contribute to the food supply of dairy products for her community. In the future, she plans to buy additional livestock such as pigs and chickens. Thanks to WIDU, she has not only been able to buy two cows, but also to hire two employees.
Farmer Judy Kageni shows the two cows she was able to buy through her successful participation in WIDU.africa.
We have been able to provide the community with affordable, healthy milk.
Judy Kageni
Access to medical services in Cameroon
Laboratoire d‘Analyses Médicales Ange-Gabrielle
Biologist Corinne Pouassoum shows her WIDU coach the microscope that she was able to buy from her WIDU subsidies.
"A high-quality medical analysis laboratory" - this is how biologist Corinne Pouassoum describes the concept of the "Laboratoire d'Analyses Médicales Ange-Gabrielle". The company wants to provide extensive testing capacities as well as uncomplicated accessibility. Therefore, the laboratory is to be opened in the Ngousso Eleveur region in order to ensure rapid treatment of patients by the doctors of the various health centres in the region. An equally important concern for Corinne is also the employment and training of local young people, "also to contribute in my own way to the development of Cameroon."
Sustainable disinfectant made in Cameroon
GIC Bellomar
Disinfectants are more in demand than ever since the start of the pandemic, whether in hospitals or in private households. That is why the Cameroonian chemical company GIC Bellomar developed a process to convert food waste into bioethanol - to produce disinfectants. "With our own resources, we were able to start production and distribution of bioethanol on a smaller scale. But that was not enough to satisfy the demand for our product. It quickly became clear: we wanted to start mass production. But we lacked the financial means to do so," recalls Martial Gervais Oden Bella, owner of GIC Bellomar. By participating in WIDU.africa, the company was able to continue paying the salaries of its employees, finance the transport of fruit to the company and thus expand the production of its disinfectant.
