The objective was to take stock of progress made in the past year and leverage it to promote EBAFOSA as the priority initiative that will accelerate socioeconomic transformation in Zambia through the implementation of the country’s Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) commitments under the Paris Agreement. The strategic thrust behind the EBAFOSA Modus operandi is to establish EBA-Driven Agriculture led, clean energy powered agro-industrial zones.

After strategic discussions with multiple stakeholders drawn from government, academia, private sector & non-governmental organizations in accordance with section 5 of the Paris Agreement, the following key next steps were agreed to drive EBAFOSA pillars in Zambia;

 Next steps: leverage on the momentum created by the National Day of Resilience to drive progress along the EBAFOSA pillars. Of note are the following;

1) EBAFOSA Compliance Standards – the contextualized EBAFOSA Compliance standard will be submitted to the Zambia Bureau of Standards (ZBS) for validation and official enforcement as part of the body of national standards for Zambia.. Another key next step is to incentivize adoption of this standard. For this, leading enterprises operating along the EBAFOSA continuum will be the first to use this standard as test cases. Already, a leading agri-business entrepreneur who is an EBAFOSA Zambia stakeholder is working to have the products being among the first to be certified with the EBAFOSA compliance. The incentive is that the produce will be marketed across Zambia & in the 40 EBAFOSA countries where the EBAFOSA compliance standard is being adopted for enforcement.

2) The EBA/Clean Energy Amalgamation – here mapping of ongoing actions in energy & nature based EBA farming enterprise – especially those of sorghum & cassava as the flagship value chains (but not limited to these) – should be urgently accelerated. The idea is to link on-farm enterprises with clean energy so they can acquire value adding systems.

3) Innovative Finance - considering that acquisition of clean energy systems are capital expenditures, the EBA/clean energy amalgamation pillar is mutually reinforcing with the Innovative Finance pillar. This following logic is critical to expedite progress;

a) operationalizing the EBA/Clean energy & Innovative Financing pillars will require mutual reinforcement. Where EBA actors primarily & where possible working with clean energy actors form the building blocks of cooperatives & co-guaranteeing schemes. These cooperatives & co-guaranteeing schemes are then the foundation for Innovative Financing through pooling their resources to increase magnitude & diversify risks so they can purchase capital assets (especially clean energy systems) that can be used communally. Alternatively use the pooled resources and diversified risk as security to acquire competitively priced loans from micro-finance institutions to purchase these capital assets. 

b) the above logic will be used to engage the cassava, sorghum & other crop farmer enterprises as well as clean energy actors to leverage on cooperatives as above;

- The first step will entail getting farmer enterprises willing to come together and leverage on existing cooperatives and in need of clean energy systems that can be used communally / shared to enhance their productivity (solar powered micro-irrigation; solar driers etc.) to form or use existing cooperatives.

- Once a significant number is reached, the cooperatives proceed to engage with the clean energy actors to create flexible financing arrangements based on pooled resources & diversified risks of the cooperatives for supply of the needed clean energy systems. Where need be, micro-finance institutions will be mobilized to form a tripartite - cooperatives, micro-finance & clean energy actors - working to provide appropriate clean energy systems to power agro-value addition.

c) In tandem with the above, mobilization of additional actors will continue to enhance chances of success.

4) ICT enabled linkages to markets & supply chains – this is development of M-eBAFOSA Zambia. Which is a “virtual EBAFOSA” - connecting dots along the entire EBAFOSA continuum within an ICT application to be available by mobile & desktop platforms. This to ensure the gaps bridging collaborative actions & partnerships can be fostered online. Here, youthful ICT actors / computer science students from University of Zambia and their colleagues will be guided to use their skills and develop M-eBAFOSA Zambia. Some students will use this as an opportunity to enrich their final year projects and CVs.

EBAFOSA Zambia becomes the 5^th National branch to commemorate their first anniversary.

Congratulations EBAFOSA Zambia! 

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