Amhara Regional State is one of nine regions within the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. It is found to the north and northwest of the country bordering with Tigray in the north, Afar in the east, Oromia in the south, Benishangul Gumuz in the south-west and the Republic of Sudan in the west. The region has an area of 170.000 square kilometres; twice the size of the Netherlands and Belgium combined. Administratively, it is divided into 19 zones, 167 districts and 40 urban administrations, of which three are metropolitan cities. Its capital city is Bahir Dar, located on the shores of Lake Tana out of which the Blue Nile flows.

The regional state offers an attractive destination for starters and incumbent agribusinesses due to an incentive package as well as suitable agro-ecology. The Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands (EKN) in Ethiopia has commissioned and published an investment guide for potential investors from both the Netherlands and other parts of the world, with an intention of investing in Amhara Region, Ethiopia. Please use the download link below to get the guide.

One of the components of ENTAG focuses on innovation funding with a grant budget of € 0.8 million. The objective of the fund is to promote innovations in various agricultural sub-sectors in Ethiopia that benefit smallholder farmers. The fund, which has been operational since September 2016, provides matching funds for innovative projects, with a maximum grant amount of € 25,000 each. Projects that take place in the poultry, aquaculture, legumes, spices, sesame, potato and dairy subsectors are eligible for co-funding.

The first-round innovation fund accepted a total of 136 applicants, out of which 15 projects have been selected for funding. All applicants and selected grantees in this fund are Ethiopian companies working on the eligible sub-sectors. Each beneficiary is required to make matching cash and in-kind contributions equal to or more than the grant fund he/she receives. At least 20 % of the contribution is made in cash.

In this newsletter please find winners of the first innovation fund in six priority sub-sectors of the fund.

There were over 350 companies that have accessed ENTAG services in the last two years. ENTAG services are inclusive for a wide range of businesses. International investors and large local companies often seek front desk service in business landscape, market linkage and low-hanging business opportunities. Small and medium sized Ethiopian companies usually look for hands on support to access finance, market and technology. Most of these companies have been in business for a few years and have seen the potential opportunities, but either lack the resources or the capacity to seize those opportunities. In particular, the fast growing, medium size and emerging companies prioritized lack of finance as critical bottleneck. As such, member companies have sought documents on available financial products and instruments to gain insights into potential investment options. Thus, to facilitate companies’ access to finance we have put together a brochure on potential financing institutions, financing types (grants, equity, loans), and terms and conditions where they are available.

Innovation Fund is one of the five focus areas of ENTAG’s support to the agribusiness sector in Ethiopia, with a maximum grant budget of € 0.8 million. The objective of the fund is to promote innovations in various agricultural sub-sectors that benefit smallholder farmers. The fund provides matching grant funding for innovative projects, with a maximum grant contribution of € 25,000. Projects are considered innovative when they introduce new or improved products, services, technology, business models and/or service delivery model to the country. Projects that take place in the poultry, aquaculture, legumes, spices, sesame, potato and dairy sub-sectors are eligible for co-funding, as well as projects targeting agri-processing, agri-logistics and agricultural financing in any agricultural sub-sector.

The Innovation Fund has been operational from September 2016, and it will end in December 2019. In July 2017, in its first round announcement, ENTAG granted matching funds to 15 innovative projects. These projects won grants from € 15,000 to € 25,000, making the total amount of money granted in first round more than € 300,000.

The second round announcement was also opened during August 2017. A total of six innovative project ideas were finalists of the round, making the total amount of money granted in the second round funding about € 150,000.

The third round call for innovative project ideas is now open. The deadline for submission of project concept notes is on 15 June 2018. The deadline for submission of proposals for selected concept notes is on 17 August 2018. More information about the third round call of the fund can be found on the downloads link above. Please download innovation fund announcement, fund manual and application concept note form all in one here. To open the file you need to have compression software installed on your computer or downloading device.

Access to well documented and organized information about Ethiopian SMEs working on poultry, spices, aquaculture and legumes subsectors has been a challenge for both local and foreign investors and business companies, with an interest to create market linkage in Ethiopia. On the other hand, because of limited capacity and awareness on producing and use of good quality company profiles, information supply and marketing has also been overlooked by the Ethiopian SMEs to make their company reachable easily. As part of its support to the private sector development, ENTAG has been developing company profiles for 120 SMEs working on its four priority value chains. Thus, this is the first company profile that contains the list of major poultry companies in Ethiopia. For more information about these sectors please visit our front desk service.

In March, the ENTAG program conducted its sixth platform meetings week, which is the first of the year 2018. The meetings raised pertinent sectoral issues and initiated interesting discussions about potential solutions and priorities. In the Newsletter below, please, find the highlights of the: Poultry platform meeting; Aquaculture platform meeting; Spices platform meeting and Legumes platform meeting.