Mulago

?? NEW RAINER ARNHOLD FELLOW?? Jonathan Mazumdar and Growth Teams help governments make jobs happen. Over the last few decades, too many developing countries have had slow or negative progress in their ability to successfully implement policies. When governments are not able to implement pro-growth policies then higher-income jobs will always be few and far between. Growth Teams coach governments to solve problems that hold back firms, and as a result generate good jobs where people get richer. They help governments focus on the right, high-potential industries, identify the biggest barriers that hold back firms in those industries, and then take the right actions to unlock those constraints to economic growth. Jonathan Mazumdar is the co-founder of Growth Teams, and for over a decade has advised governments and invested in early-stage ventures across Africa and India. Prior to this, he worked on investment and industrialization with the Government of Rwanda through the Tony Blair Institute. He launched and built Acumen Fund’s education portfolio and then helped start Sangam Ventures, India’s first dedicated cleantech venture fund. Jonathan began his career at J-PAL, working on an impact evaluation in rural Bihar. He got his MPA/ID from the Harvard Kennedy School.

?? NEW HENRY ARNHOLD FELLOW?? Ines Serra Baucells and BIOSORRA make soil enriching biochar from agricultural waste. Biochar is a substance that’s made by burning organic material from agricultural waste using a process called pyrolysis. The resulting biochar looks like charcoal but is a far more efficient way of converting carbon into a stable form — hence way fewer emissions. And there’s an added bonus: biochar is a super effective fertilizer that improves soil quality, much needed in regions that are worn out from overfarming or that have acidic soil. BIOSORRA transforms crop waste into biochar in Kenya. The resulting biochar fertilizer is sold to farmers, enhancing soil health and productivity. The technology seems to have found its moment thanks to the carbon market, as BIOSORRA sells carbon credits from the sequestered carbon that is mixed into the soil. Ines Serra Baucells is an engineer and architect by training with a deep passion for soil. She co-founded BIOSORRA in 2022 after seeing the big potential for biochar to remove CO2 at a relatively low investment cost. Before that, she worked as a strategy consultant at Deloitte and McKinsey, advising energy companies on sustainability. She got her MBA from IESE Business School and is a former professional ski competitor.

?? NEW RAINER ARNHOLD FELLOW ?? Irene Etyang and MAMLO FOODS are bringing food processing microfactories to Kenya. Selling raw materials is a tough way for farmers to make income. The higher up the value chain a farmer can sell their product, the more income they can make.? MAMLO FOODS gets farmers on a higher rung of the value chain through a solar-powered, container-based microfactory that can process crops like peanuts, cassava and bananas into higher value products. They organize women farmers into cooperatives, bringing together groups of smallholder farmers. Each cooperative owns a microfactory with a 40-acre processing capacity. MAMLO FOODS also provides training on producing value-added products, food safety standards, and why group selling is more profitable. They then connect farmers to higher-paying, larger buyers, boosting their income and market access. Irene Etyang is a food scientist who founded MAMLO FOODS to increase income of rural women farmers. She grew up in rural Kenya, where her parents were smallholder farmers, and she personally suffered from malnutrition growing up. She's a food innovator and has launched multiple food lines while working closely with a range of Agri-Food SMEs. With five years of experience in product development, Irene has launched multiple food lines and she’s influenced Kenyan tax policy to enhance inter-county trade.?

This graph should obsess anyone funding or working?in Africa...

?? NEW HENRY ARNHOLD FELLOW ?? Dickson Kaelo and the Kenya Wildlife Conservancies Association work to boost the community led conservation movement in Kenya. Community-owned conservancies — organizations that manage land for the benefit of the community and the environment — are relatively widespread in Kenya, but their approaches can be piecemeal and they often lack funding to bend the curve of biodiversity decline across the region. The Kenya Wildlife Conservancies Association organizes community-owned conservancies into regional associations, all nested within a national membership body, to amplify their collective voice. They strengthen the management of conservancies so they can have a bigger conservation impact. The Kenya Wildlife Conservancies Association also advocates for national and county policies, regulations, and funding that support the wildlife conservancies. Additionally, they work to increase revenue for conservancies from tourism, carbon markets, and government funding. Dickson Kaelo is the CEO of the Kenya Wildlife Conservancies Association. He helped create some of Kenya’s first conservancies in the Mara over twenty years ago and, inspired by his father’s work as a veterinary extension officer, Dickson has dedicated his career to promoting the coexistence of people and wildlife. He holds a Master’s in Wildlife Management and has spent years studying how cultural and modern knowledge can secure wildlife habitats.

?? NEW RAINER FELLOW ?? There’s ample evidence that faster care leads to better health outcomes in Africa. Emergency Response Africa — led by the remarkable Folake Owodunni — connects people quickly to life-saving care through a network of trained first responders, emergency vehicles, and verified hospitals, all linked together by their software. Emergency Response Africa trains community-based responders to become skilled Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs) and coordinates a fleet of ambulances and moto-riders for rapid transport. Their dispatch system triages calls, directing the nearest driver to the closest emergency-ready facility. They also track patient outcomes to gather data and improve future responses. Folake Owodunni, ERA’s co-founder and CEO, was inspired to start the organization after a personal emergency with her son in Canada highlighted the gap between emergency care there and in her home country of Nigeria. With two Master’s degrees and 15 years of experience in healthcare, consulting, and marketing, Folake Owodunni has earned multiple awards, including the Aurora Tech Award and Google Black Founders Fund.

?? NEW HENRY FELLOW?? Bustar Maitar works in Eastern Indonesia — one of the most biodiverse regions in the world. Its forests are teeming with life but they’re constantly under threat from bad actors like big palm oil companies. It’s also one of the most culturally diverse regions in the world. All that diversity is at risk if those communities don’t have rights over their lands and a means to make a livelihood from it. EcoNusa Foundation protects Eastern Indonesian forests through market linkages for pro-forest products. First, they help local communities map their land boundaries and secure legal tenure. Then they identify companies violating regulations and push for their concessions to be revoked. EcoNusa Foundation helps communities sustainably harvest their crops in line with conservation practices. Through a large buyer cooperative, owned by both communities and EcoNusa, they ensure fair market access and better prices for local products. Bustar Maitar founded EcoNusa Foundation in 2017 to bring together forest conservation and sustainable local economies. He is a seasoned campaigner with over 20 years of experience in environmental protection and social justice in Indonesia. He spent over a decade at Greenpeace, and led?a lot?of deforestation campaigns. Bustar Maitar is also an open water diving instructor, and balances his serious campaign and livelihood work with time under the water.

I love field visits! ?? Nothing excites me more than when our funders visit Synnefa and spend a couple of days visiting our smart greenhouses, understanding what we are building and learning what more we can do to truly improve incomes for farmers with climate resilient cash crops. But there is something different with our funders from Mulago. They are not just about writing checks; they are about rolling up there sleeves and digging into impact with us. We spent 2 days with the Mulago team lead by Kevin Starr and Sanat Daga looking at strategy, unit economics, impact and how do we truly get to scale and how does scale look like. We even broke out the flip charts, pens, and Post-its to scribble, brainstorm, and rethink strategy together. We might have used too much paper I guess ?? but its the process of thinking through strategy and writing it down that shows you have actually internalised it. It’s rare to find partners who are as invested in the mission as they are in the numbers. Safe to say, they left as excited as we are! ?? #impact #socialentrepreneurship #mulagofoundation #ImpactInvesting #FarmShield #innovation #agriculture

We looked at over 800 incredible social entrepreneurs this year - these are our top 8, with solutions to climate and conservation. So excited to hosting them in Morocco later this month for our annual fellows retreat!

And now say hello to our 2024 Henry Arnhold Fellows. These eight remarkable leaders have scalable solutions for conservation and climate. We sifted through a lot of organizations to find these unstoppable leaders with some very big ideas. Take a look: Bustar Maitar at EcoNusa Foundation: Co-ops to link communities to markets for pro-forest products in Eastern Indonesia. Dickson Kaelo at Kenya Wildlife Conservancies Association: Collective action for community-led conservancies to bend the curve of biodiversity decline in Kenya. Ines Serra Baucells at BIOSORRA: Conversion of agricultural waste into biochar fertilizer to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Kenya. Jade Saunders at World Forest ID: A scientific standard for verification of plant product origins to eradicate illegal deforestation exports. José Monteiro at ReGeCom: Collective action for community-led conservancies to create thriving ecosystems and communities in Mozambique. Peter Bosip at Centre for Environmental Law & Community Rights: Legal support to enforce territory rights and protect the environment in Papua New Guinea. Shantanu Agarwal? at Mati Carbon: Enhanced Rock Weathering to make smallholder farmers more climate resilient in India and Africa. And last but not least… Solange Bandiaky-Badji at Rights and Resources Initiative: A global coalition to advocate for rights to land and resources for indigenous peoples, Afro-descendant peoples, and local communities. As fellows they’ll each receive money ($100K) and a lot of support and connections. And they’ll join us and our Rainer Arnhold Fellows for the main events — a couple of week-long design and strategy retreats. This year's retreat is in Morocco. Take a look - they'll give you a much-needed dose of optimism for the years ahead.