Fanning the Spark

Bur­undi is one of the poorest coun­tries in the world, ow­ing in part to its post-war struggle and refugee prob­lems. More than two third of the pop­u­la­tion lives of ag­ri­cul­ture, with less than one dol­lar a day to spend. Pro­ductiv­ity and par­ti­cip­a­tion in in­come gen­er­at­ing activ­it­ies are very low. To break the vi­cious circle of low ag­ri­cul­tur­al pro­duc­tion, risk ad­verse de­cision mak­ing, lack of re­sources, and poor en­tre­pren­eur­i­al skills, an in­teg­rated ap­proach is re­quired that ad­dresses the en­tire en­vir­on­ment of the farm(er). In or­der to do so we have brought to­geth­er a unique blend of ex­pert­ise on ag­ri­cul­tur­al, health and fin­an­cial in­clu­sion, bring­ing to­geth­er private en­ter­prises, NGOs and re­search or­gan­isa­tions.
Fan­ning the Spark in Bur­undi is an ini­ti­at­ive of Achmea, Health­Net TPO and Wa­gen­in­gen Uni­versity and Re­search centre. The part­ner­ship is fun­ded with a dona­tion from the Achmea Found­a­tion, a grant from the Min­istry of For­eign Af­fairs from the Neth­er­lands with­in the fa­cil­ity for Sus­tain­able En­tre­pren­eur­ship and Food Se­cur­ity (FDOV) and with in kind con­tri­bu­tions of Achmea em­ploy­ees.