Kenyan Firms Urged to Apply for Nestlé KES 50Mn Funding

Kenyan entrepreneurs and established businesses have been urged to participate in Nestlé’s’ Creating Shared Value Prize (CVS) to stand a chance of winning over Sh50million monetary award to boost their operations.

 Through the prize, Nestlé encourages and help innovative, commercially viable, and high-impact initiatives achieve scale and financial sustainability.

 Three Kenyan organizations and projects have been recognized for the Nestlé CSV Prize since its launch in 2009. Sanergy and Honey Care won in 2014 while African Sand Dam Foundation which promotes access to water in rural Machakos was the third runners up in 2012.

Speaking during the announcement of the 2016 winners, Mrs. Judy Mwangi, the Corporate Communications Manager at Nestlé Equatorial Africa Region called on Kenyans to nominate or apply for the incoming CSV Prize which will be awarded in 2018.

Read: How the Government of Kenya Can Help Empower Start-Ups

“Kenyan organisations that have missed to apply for the 2016 edition now have a chance   to apply for 2018 CSV Prize that will be launched in early 2017. You can nominate any business-oriented initiatives that meet the CSV Prize criteria,” said Mrs. Mwangi.

“Applicants to the Nestlé CSV Prize can either self-nominate or be nominated by others who are familiar with their work. In either case, the nomination process is the same. Nominations are submitted through the official nomination form available online at www.nestle.com/nestlecsvprize.”

According to Mrs. Mwangi, eligible applicants include social and private enterprises as well as non-governmental organisations (NGOs). The area of focus of the Initiative must be in either of the following fields: nutrition, water or rural development. Applications are done in English and are open to applicants based in any country of the world and cover programmes implemented in low-middle and high-income countries that benefit underserved parts of the community,” she added.

Agro-Hub, an organization from Cameroon that helps small scale farmers turn harvested cassava into spaghetti, snacks, laundry starch, cooking flour among other products won the 2016 CVS prize worth Sh31million funding after beating 24 applicants from Kenya  and over 420 others from 80 countries across the globe.

The 2016 winners were awarded during the 7th Creating Shared Value Forum held in Abidjan this week. The forum brought together business, government leaders and civil society from Africa, Europe and beyond in the conference themed ‘Investing in sustainable development in Africa.

 “Every two years up to three innovative schemes related to water, nutrition or rural developments are selected for the Nestlé Prize in Creating Shared Value (CSV). Creating Shared Value encourages businesses to create economic and social value simultaneously by focusing on the social issues that they are uniquely capable of addressing,” said Judy Mwangi, Corporate Communications Manager at Nestlé Equatorial Africa Region.

Natural Extracts Industries (NEI) which is pioneering sustainable extraction of flavors in Tanzania was awarded Sh21million after emerging runners up in the 2016 CSV Prize. NEI, which was founded in November 2011, has established a value chain for the marketing of natural flavor extracts from vanilla, cacao and orange, working with smallholder farmers on the Tanzanian side of Mount Kilimanjaro.