As part of the Go-In project, conducted since 2017 in Burkina Faso, GRET’s and the project partners’ teams developed an investment fund to facilitate acquisition of equipment for production, collection, processing and marketing by micro, small and medium-sized businesses working in the milk and non-timber forest products value chains.
The creation of this fund aims to facilitate the investment capacity of these structures, making it possible to sustainably increase their production and their profitability. It also makes it possible to respond to recurrent difficulties regarding access to credit, to deal with the lack of infrastructures, support standardisation of production to improve product quality, and introduce and support innovations to leverage growth.
This investment fund is an instrument for funding via shared-cost grants, combining the resources of the Go-In project and those of businesses leading projects. According to amounts of investments, structures pay 10 %, 30 % or 50 % of the cost of investment to dedicated accounts, making it possible to ensure a certain level of sustainability of investment and to minimise the charitable aspect of the grant.
At the end of 2021, 104 organisations (individual businesses, associations, cooperatives and Economic Interest Groups) had already benefitted from a shared cost grant. The total amount of investments is almost 450,000 € for individual grants ranging from 1,000 € to 50,000 €. Apart from financial investments, the businesses were also strengthened and supported by the GRET teams, particularly with identification of investment projects, grant applications, administrative formalisation of structures and opening of dedicated bank accounts. In addition, training and coaching in management and marketing was delivered.
In order to facilitate monitoring of investments and development by the businesses engaged in the process, an interactive map was developed. It features information concerning sectors of activity of the businesses supported, photos of investments and feedback from the people supported.
