Announcing Judges and Projects
Over 40 per cent of today’s global population’s livelihood depends on agriculture, making it the largest source of income and jobs for poor rural households, research by the United Nations (UN) has shown.
Therefore, we would like for you to join us on Thursday, September 13th to discuss and learn how the private sector can play a role in pursuing the realisation of the Sustainable Development Goal Zero Hunger in Africa.
“The food and agriculture sector offers key solutions for development, and is central for hunger and poverty eradication” — UN
As part of the event, Uhusiano Capital will host an engaging and interactive pitch competition, enabling African agribusinesses to showcase their projects to a diverse group of players in the impact investment space.
Below you will find an overview of the projects competing for the judge’s and audience’s attention. More detailed profiles will be coming soon! Register today.

The Projects
ViFAD, Ivory Coast — Chris Daplet, Founder and CEO
Social entrepreneur born in the Ivory Coast, educated in France and the UK, graduating with a Degree and Post-graduate in Finance and Commodities. Using the skills gained through working in Investment Banking and the Commodities industry, he aims to bring further development to the Ivory Coast.
In Ivory Coast rice is a keep staple for the nation. However, over 50% of this rice is imported internationally instead of being home-grown. This is astonishing as Ivory Coast has a potential to be able to grow rice to meet local demand and sell it at fair price to producers and consumers in the local area.
Improving the structure of the rice network will enable smallholder farmers in out-grower schemes to produce enough rice with a better quality to improve their living conditions and respond to the domestic demand regarding food security. ViFAD’s aim is to feed over 50,000 people per year, in addition to creating direct and indirect jobs.



World Food Bank, Uganda — Scott Brown, CEO
Over the years, Scott’s passion for justice and poverty alleviation led him to dabble in house building in Guatemala and founded and ran a street youth shelter in Toronto. He made the leap from commercial to NGO in 2006 when he joined World Vision to become President & CEO of VisionFund International, with operations in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe. Initially with grass root lending in 48 countries and only 3 people overseeing the work, over the next 11 years, he set about building a respected global network of micro finance operations with strong governance and risk management framework, operations, and fundraising, balancing financial and social performance measures. Scott realised poverty alleviation, improved nutrition for children and food self-sufficiency required agriculture value chain improvements on a commercial basis. He joined World Food Bank as President in 2018 and is working on regional agriculture and nutrition projects, and a blended funding “grain trading fund” in East Africa.



More projects to come
The Judges
Joseph Ssentongo

Joseph is the Senior Evaluator at the Global Innovation Fund (GIF) where he assesses the social impact of GIF’s investments in multiple sectors including agriculture and water. Previously, he worked with the Investment Climate Facility for Africa (ICF), leading the evaluations of private sector development projects across 14 African countries. Prior to ICF, Joseph worked with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) on gender and rural employment matters. Joseph holds a Master of Public Policy (MPP) degree from the University of Oxford.
Mariana Graca

Mariana is a native Portuguese speaker, leading AgDevCo‘s investments and partnerships in West Africa for over six years. Before joining AgDevCo Mariana was a consultant for the United Nations and worked in rural Rwanda to help implement a self-sufficient school model.
Prior to that Mariana worked as business intelligence and ESG researcher for Arachnys and Vigeo EIRIS, respectively. As a student, Mariana interned at a Human Rights office in Cape Town and at the United Nations. Mariana has an MSc in International Relations from the London School of Economics and holds qualifications in finance.
Lisa Conibear

Lisa is a business manager at Shell Foundation where she heads the Energy for Agriculture and Sustainable Mobility portfolios. She has deep experience working with start-ups in emerging markets and is passionate about building disruptive and impactful companies. She is operational with portfolio companies, providing support including strategy, fundraising, board management, organisational structure and hiring.
Eren Kelekci

Eren has over 15 years of professional experience in the investment industry on a wide range of asset classes, investment strategies/solutions and geographies both in direct and fund investments. Eren joined the African Development Bank in 2018 as Chief Private Sector and Blended Finance, focusing on the origination of transactions in food and agriculture.
More detailed profiles of the judges and projects will be published daily until the event, so stay tuned!
Want to find out more about the event? Click here: http://bit.ly/UCPressReleases
Register for the event here: http://bit.ly/UCAfricaSDGs
