WE4F has released its 2021 annual report announcing that the program, the MENA and S/SEA RIHs, and their supported innovators are making significant progress.
So far, the 39 innovators have helped more than 55,0000 smallholder farmers and other end-users produce more than 250,000 tons of food while saving more than 43 million kWh of energy. Of the end-users supported by WE4F, more than 17,000 end-users had increased incomes in the MENA region. Read full report here.
The Middle East and North Africa Regional Innovation Hub (MENA RIH) is run by a team of locally-based implementing organizations; cewas, Chemonics Egypt, and IWMI led by Berytech with the support of experienced and dedicated governmental founding partners.
Supporting SMEs to Grow Their Impact
“The program focuses on SMEs, existing companies that have a proven model and the ability to scale and we selected these companies based on extremely important criteria including their innovative edge, not only today but in the future, their ability to scale, and the impact that they are realizing in terms of environment, social and gender,” explains Constantin Salemeh, Head of Investments WE4F MENA. “The fact that the program focuses on the MENA region, from Morocco to Iraq including countries like Sudan and Yemen, allows Berytech to add value across the region creating synergies with the different companies across the different countries which can especially benefit Lebanese companies looking for partners to export across the region, opening wonderful opportunities to network and collaborate.”
In Lebanon the program is supporting multiple SMEs including Biomass in the organic agriculture field, Robinson Agri working with more than 2000 small scale farmers, Compost Baladi leading in terms of waste management, Green Essence leaders in installing solar PV solutions across agriculture, residential and industrial areas, and Gobaladi in goat-derived dairy products.
“Berytech is working with these companies to make sure they are prepared to raise funds. For all of these companies to grow they need access to funding. We provide up to $300K in grants, technical assistance, and investment readiness support, but most importantly we help them prepare themselves to be ready to meet with investors like we have done with Biomass last month and like will do with most of the companies that are part of the program. Some of these companies are raising $8M to $10M in debt and equity capital. We help them assess the gaps they have, understand the documents they need, the process they need to go through to fill those gaps and then we help them to pitch,” continues Salemeh.
“We also have transactions in pipeline that exceed $15M that are related to companies in Morocco, Egypt and other countries looking to enter the MENA market. Moreover, WE4F has a special chapter for Iraq in which 8 companies were selected and some of them are looking as well to mobilise funds from the private sector. The Berytech investment team of WE4F will also work closely with these organizations to help them raise private capital,” confirms Nicolas Farhat, Deputy Regional Innovation Hub Manager – WE4F MENA.
About WE4F MENA Regional Innovation Hub
Berytech is leading the consortium for the MENA Regional Innovation Hub (MENA RIH) – Water and Energy for Food Grand Challenge (WE4F). WE4F is a joint international initiative of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), the European Union (EU), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Government of the Netherlands, Sweden through the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
