Between 2005 and 2011, Kilimo Trust core mandate was grant making and provision of business development services (BDS), managing over 50 projects worth US$13 million in the East Africa Region. The grants were awarded to both public and private sector entities to enable them to help groups of small holder farmers to engage with the private sector, improve their profitability and scale up promising innovations and best practices. During this time, KT gained experience in five key areas:
- fostering private-private partnerships;
- enhancing market support structure;
- commercializing technical innovations, and
- leading supportive policies and strategies for agriculture development at the national level.
Grant managing experience is now applied in our current projects’ implementation (such as CARI I & II, CHIPS and REACTS-II projects) to manage matching grants extended to private sector. Click for details