Self Help Africa

21/05/2026

Access to village savings and loans groups has brought tangible benefits to families in Ethiopia’s Amhara region, community representatives told a delegation from World Food Programme and Self Help Africa, during a recent visit.

The delegation were told that many families are now engaged in animal rearing, doubling their livestock numbers through support they had received from the WFP-funded project. Women’s groups also reported improvements in household incomes, childhood nutrition, and savings.

The visit reviewed the sustainability of work that had been carried out with the support of Self Help Africa, including climate-adaptive farming, wheat cultivation, as well as improvements in nutrition, especially through school feeding programmes.

19/05/2026

Self Help Africa’s Boston network broke all records last weekend, when the 2026 Change-Maker’s Gala raised an incredible $450,000 to support our work.

With our amazing emcee and ambassador, Jaimie Alexander leading the way, the glittering gala set new records for Boston, and generated an amazing $218,000 for this year’s special project - supporting women-focussed village savings and loans (VSLA) across our African projects.

A huge ‘thank you’ to all who attended, sponsored and donated - to support this year’s ball at The Seapoint Hotel on the south Boston waterfront.

18/05/2026

Utilising challenge funds as a development tool can stimulate private sector innovation, strengthen agricultural value chains and expand opportunities for smallholder farmers.
Dillon Kasson writes about Self Help Africa's experience implementing Agrifi Kenya Challenge Fund and ENTERPRISE Zambia Challenge Fund, and offers some lessons learned on the implementation of these European Union backed multi-million euro projects.
AgriFI Kenya supported 37 companies across 13 value chains and helped to integrate around 162,000 smallholder farmers into inclusive agricultural markets, while Enterprise Zambia supported 26 businesses working with more than 200,000 farmers across agriculture, agroforestry and aquaculture sectors.
As development partners look to the private sector to deliver development outcomes, challenge funds remain a powerful tool for building more resilient and inclusive agricultural markets.

Dillon Kasson from Self Help Africa examines the promise and complexity of challenge funds as a development tool. How can these funds create new opportunities for smallholder farmers?

17/05/2026

For most of his adult life, the threat of drought hung over 50-year-old Albert Mandevu as he farmed his land in Nga’ndu village in Zambia’s Southern Province.

Although the province is considered one of the country’s agricultural heartlands, Albert has seen crops wither and die more often than he cares to remember. Zambia’s far south has become increasingly vulnerable to drought, as the effects of climate change tighten their grip.

The installation of a simple irrigation system – provided to Albert Mandevu as part of a Self Help Africa drought resilience project (DROPP) – is changing all that however.

He has begun growing cabbage and tomatoes commercially with the benefit of his drip-line irrigation, and better still, he’s growing crops all year around because he no longer relies on uncertain rains.

In the past year he has earned Zambian Kwacha 36,000 (€1,565) from the sale of produce, and has used his new-found income to expand his irrigation site and has opened a grocery shop in the village. His household is benefitting too, with his young children all attending school, and long-awaited improvements being carried out to the family home.

"We now have water available whenever we need it. My family has enough food for the full year, and I am producing and trading, even during the dry season,” he says.
DROPP, which is supporting 3,000 households in Gwembe and Kalomo Districts of southern Zambia is funded by Ireland’s Civil Society Partnership programme, funded by Irish Aid.

15/05/2026

Sagrada Marten grew up on a small farm. But she never expected to one day be an agricultural businesswoman – an entrepreneur who earned her living producing and selling good quality seed where she lives in Bengo, a small railroad village in Manica Province in central Mozambique.

Supported by Self Help Africa’s ‘Kufungula Muae’ Project ( ‘opening opportunities’ in local dialect), Sagrada Marten is now an agri-preneur who produces maize seed. Last year she sold over 1,800 kg of a variety of drought tolerant and early maturing maize that’s commonly used to in the production of flour.

Kufungula Muae, supported by the World Food Programme (WFP), is supporting 15,000 households, helping thousands of women and rural youth like Sagrada with activities that make Mozambique’s farming systems more productive, profitable, and resilient.

She says that as a result of the training she received she has learned techniques for the production and conservation of quality seed, as well as how best to manage her business, establish market connections, and earn a living.

“I am able to contribute more to my family’s income and I feel proud to be recognized in my community as a producer of certified seeds. My goal is to expand my production, diversify into new crops, and consolidate my business as a sustainable seed producer in my community,” she says proudly.

14/05/2026

Meet Joyce, a driving force of change in her community in Zambia. 🇿🇲

Through Irish Aid’s Sustainable landscape project (Preserve Kafue II) Joyce facilitated the formation of five Savings and Credit Associations (ASCAs). She now serves in the capacity of an ASCA Champion. 💪
The five groups have 157 active participants who all are registered and operate formally with the government and private sector actors.

By introducing digital tools like Hiveonline, a digital platform that helps to save time and reduce transport-related costs, Joyce has made it easier for groups to access loans, track credit history, and grow their businesses, from poultry farming to tree seedling sales.

🌳 But her impact doesn’t stop there. As part of a community-led reforestation effort, Joyce manages a tree nursery supporting a bold vision: planting over 20,000 trees by 2027. She alone is contributing 6,700.

Joyce: a farmer, entrepreneur, and catalyst for economic growth. 🌳 💫

13/05/2026

🚨 Our 2026 Annual Boston Change-Makers Gala is THIS FRIDAY! You still have a chance to get tickets and celebrate with us.

📅 Friday, May 15th, 2026
🕖 7:00 PM
📍 Seaport Hotel, Boston

Join us for an unforgettable evening of impact, inspiration, and celebration.

We’re honored to welcome renowned actress and our MC for the evening Jaimie Alexander, for a special night to help raise vital funds to support farmers across Africa.

Click here to join us or donate https://buff.ly/hh4nswE

12/05/2026

The war on Iran has brought into sharp focus once more the arguments for a more affordable and sustainable approach to farming and food production in Africa.

The impact of the closure of the Gulf of Hormuz on oil and gas supplies and prices, is well documented. The gulf blockade has also created a huge global shortage and triggered massive price hikes for urea and other nitrogen-rich fertilisers too.

Although African farmers use far less fertiliser than elsewhere, small-scale farmers can nonetheless ill-afford the price hikes that are occurring due to shortages. A new approach to food production based on agroecology is needed.

11/05/2026

In Dedza district of Malawi, communities are promoting alternatives to charcoal cooking, such as zipolopolo cookstoves, reducing environmental impact while creating more efficient, affordable energy solutions.

Through the Sustainable Production, Economic Growth, Accountability and Resilience programme, supported by Irish Aid, communities in Malawi are working towards a more sustainable future.

Focusing on 35,000 households in Chauma area, the project is helping those most vulnerable to climate change, particularly women, strengthen their food, income, and energy security. 🌱

Watch this video to learn more!

06/05/2026

49-year-old Christina Mutinta knew that she’d been given an important role when she was elected to chair the community natural resource committee in Monze district, southern Zambia.

And she took her job seriously.

Under Christina’s leadership the group mobilized 200 small-scale farming households, and put 200 hectares of land (approx. 500 acres) under community protection. The village natural resource committee put into place a programme of work that:
• Controlled grazing of the grasslands
• Managed the watershed and wetlands
• and prepared a fire management plan.

Their activities supported the regeneration of farmland, preserved forestry, and protected the environmentally sensitive low-lying (dambo) wetlands that spread out from Kafue River, a major tributary of the Zambezi River, Africa’s fourth biggest waterway.

On her own small farm, Christina became a seed entrepreneur, using knowledge that technical skills that she picked up on training courses that she attended at the Zambia Research Institute (ZARI) and from the Seed Control and Certification Institute (SCCI).

She’s now a commercial seed producer and a member of the Seed Growers Association. Christina Mutinta and the other seed entrepreneurs in Monze support farming households to access quality seed through community seed banks. As well as producing nutrient rich legume (bean, lentil, groundnut) seed they produce and provide farmers with cuttings of drought-tolerant cassava, and of nutrient rich orange-fleshed sweet potato vines.

Under Christine’s leadership the community has also established three tree-nurseries that have produced and distributed more than 6,700 fruit tree seedlings to local households.

04/05/2026

“I’m already storing maize at home, you’ll see it when we eat. Just one cob is so full that even a single family member can’t finish it alone. It’s extremely productive and beneficial,” says Beyene, a smallholder farmer in Ethiopia. 🌽

So what made the difference? Biofortification, the process of improving the nutritional quality of crops by increasing their vitamin and mineral content.

Through the Seeds of Change project, supported by Irish Aid, Beyene received Quality Protein Maize and training in biofortification. The result? Higher yields, more resilient crops, and more nutritious food for his family.

At a time when Ethiopia’s food systems are under pressure from climate change and population growth, initiatives like this are helping farmers grow not just more food, but better food. 🌱