Joint efforts to leverage and shake challenges in Ethiopia
In Ethiopia, the consequences of the movement restrictions in terms of accessibility to to food and other essential products at fair prices, can be felt across the country East African Holdings, the business champion of the maize partnership, mobilized 10 Million Birr (more than USD 300,000) to give support to the most heavily COVID-19 affected people in Ethiopia. Buzuayehu Tadele (BT) Foundation, affiliated with East African Holdings, has been coordinating support under this initiative since the beginning of April, also aligning to the initiative of the Ethiopian Prime Minister named ‘Sharing Meal’, that calls for every family to share at least one meal per day with disadvantaged families. BT Foundation is working to provide daily meals, together with young volunteers, to around 10,000 people for a period of two months in eight different towns across Ethiopia and named its action ‘love meal’.
Also in Ethiopia, Tsehay union, the business champion of the oilseeds partnership, is not only taking needed measures to raise workers awareness and to keep physical distancing during production and marketing processes, but is also intensifying its oil distribution to ensure accessibility and affordability of oil to consumers, where possible linking up with regional and national food initiatives. Unlike some opportunistic private traders, the union is still selling the oil at the same price (birr/liter), 25% lower than similar products in the market. On a daily basis, they are selling 8,000 liters of oil that is approximately serving around 1,600 households per day in this challenging time.
Vegetable baskets 7,322.1 km away
More than 7000 km from Ethiopia, Canaan Land, the business champion in the vegetable partnership in Cote d’Ivoire, is implementing a similar initiative. The company is raising money to support the most vulnerable households through the weekly distribution of one thousand vegetable baskets to most vulnerable families, affected farming households, as well as medical professionals working at the forefront of combating the crisis. For this, Canaan Land sources vegetables from local women smallholder farmers, and involves micro-enterprises from its community in the composition and distribution of the baskets of vegetables. Canaan Land is working in close partnership with UN WOMEN in Côte d'Ivoire.
30% discount for KEDAN products
Finally, in Ghana
business champion KEDAN Ltd responded to the call of the government of Ghana to individuals and corporates to step in and support vulnerable households. The company made a donation of one hundred bags of maize flour to the Sissala East Municipal Assembly for distribution to vulnerable people in the district. The CEO of KEDAN limited Eric Kissi Dankwa said: “This donation aims to augment Government’s efforts in ensuring that citizens are provided with nutritious food during this COVID-19 pandemic since good nutrition can support the development of a strong immune system to fight the virus”.
Beyond the donation, the company has reduced prices of its products as much as 30% for the government and 15% for individual consumers. This is to make the products affordable and stimulate access to food and ensure a food secured society.
Read also: How our private sector partners in 2SCALE are dealing with COVID-19
