This is in line with the Sustainable Development Goals set by the United Nations (SDGs).
Sandosham went to Africa as the first stop on a tour of the organization's work around the world. He will also visit regional teams in Asia and the Americas. She met the members of the Africa team at the regional headquarters in Lagos, Nigeria. This gave her a chance to share her vision for the work Heifer Africa is doing in the region and how excited she is about it.
During her trip to Nigeria, she met with some of Heifer's young agritech innovation partners and other key stakeholders. She reaffirmed Heifer's commitment to work with youth and innovate to change Africa's food systems, as well as to work with smallholder farmers, producers, cooperatives, and others to make sure that agricultural interventions are sustainable.
Sandosham told the people he was talking to that "Heifer believes that smallholder farmers hold the key to ending food insecurity in Africa." "Africa imports an average of over USD 43 billion worth of food every year. We think that access to finance, access to innovation, access to infrastructure, and access to training can increase food production and strengthen local food systems, making them less vulnerable to climate shocks and less dependent on imports in the long run."
As part of her trip to Africa, Sandosham also went to Rwanda to see how Heifer works there. She met with Dr. Geraldine Mukeshimana, Rwanda's minister of agriculture and animal resources (MINAGRI), as well as development partners and other important people to talk about the progress of Heifer Rwanda partner projects and look into other ways to work together in the country.
Sandosham said, "It was a pleasure to visit Heifer's country office in Rwanda and meet with the regional team and other key partners in our mission to end hunger and poverty in Africa." "For the past 48 years, Heifer has been in Africa working with both the government and development partners to help smallholder farmers and farming communities build successful businesses, become more self-sufficient, and make more money. It was inspiring to see how much everyone in the Heifer Africa region and among our partners wants to make this happen. The Heifer programmes that are currently running in Africa show that we are still committed to our goal of helping smallholder farmers and their communities get out of poverty.
Heifer International's Senior Vice President for Africa Programs, Adesuwa Ifedi, said this about the CEO's trip to the region: "Having the CEO visit the region and meet our partners and key stakeholders was important to restate our position that Africa's food systems need a mix of interventions and partnerships at all levels to thrive." Over the next eight years, our strategic goal as a region is to help more than 6 million farmers reach a sustainable living income by 2030. We will do this by working with the private and public sectors to reach transformational scale. "We won't give up on our mission and work to make agriculture more resilient because it's still an important part of Africa's food security, workforce, and economy."
