Who Contributes to the Land Accelerator?

The Land Accelerator partnership brings together experts in entrepreneurship, restoration, and investment to help entrepreneurs scale their businesses. Learn about the partners and their contributions to the program: 

Land Accelerator Africa Partners:

	The World Resources Institute (WRI) is a global research organization that spans more than 60 countries. The Institute’s more than 2,000 experts and staff work with government leaders, community groups, private sector actors and others to turn big ideas into action to sustain and protect the world’s most precious natural resources. Through regional initiatives like AFR100 and Initiative 20x20, WRI’s Global Restoration Initiative is dedicated to restoring the health of degraded forests and landscapes around the globe for the benefit of people and the planet. Staff of WRI in the US and Africa organize the Land Accelerator partnership and provide programmatic vision and implementation.
	Fledge is a global network of business accelerators and seed investment funds that help entrepreneurs bring their companies to scale through short, intense programs filled with education, guidance, and mentorship. To date, they have invested in over 40 African companies. The Land Accelerator companies benefit from Fledge’s trainings, which have empowered dozens of SMEs in Africa to receive investment and scale.
	Barka is an impact fund focused on African entrepreneurs taking measures to address urgent climate and environmental challenges in their communities. Barka supports their efforts to scale environmental and climate solutions and build sustainable companies. With the Land Accelerator, the Barka team takes a lead in engaging the Francophone participants with mentorship, providing feedback, and trainings in French. This collaboration fosters interaction of Francophone and Anglophone participants.
	The African Union Development Agency (AUDA-NEPAD) serves as the Secretariat of the African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative (AFR100), an alliance of 30 countries that have committed to restore 100 million hectares of degraded land by 2030. The Secretariat actively supports women and youth entrepreneurs to restore land. The NEPAD team contributes by ensuring a far reach to the 34 companies within the AFR100, as well as supporting outreach and inclusion of women entrepreneurs through their strong pan-African networks.  The team also contributes by managing the Innovation Grant portion of the Land Accelerator program.

Land Accelerator Landscapes Partners:

Beginning in 2023 the Land Accelerator launched programming in three key landscapes in support of the RestoreLocal initiative. To support this effort to bring focused, localized support to land restoration champions, five regional partners have joined the Land Accelerator partnership.

	AgriProfocus Rwanda is a dynamic network of agricultural professionals promoting farm entrepreneurship and innovation. Over the past 2 decades, the organization has played a pivotal role in building capacity for entrepreneurs with a focus on empowering women and cooperatives engaged in diverse agro-value chains. Some of the activities they undertake include training, market linkages, and investment opportunity identification for the entrepreneurs they work with. As a Land Accelerator partner, AgriProfocus will deliver incubation for early-stage restoration entrepreneurs from Lake Kivu and Rusizi River Basin in Rwanda and Burundi.
	Africa Agribusiness Academy (AAA) is an agrifood SME Apex organization with seven country chapters in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Burundi and Malawi. It contains membership, partnership and networking divisions that support entrepreneurs to grow their businesses by seeking to foster innovation and growth of MSME agrifood firms in Africa. They support entrepreneurs to adopt business models that are responsive and adaptive to their respective ecosystem and carry out exploratory studies and action research on pertinent matters related to agriculture, agribusiness and climate. Their target areas include climate adaptation and ecological stewardship, formulation of inclusive business models, access to financial services and markets, inclusive agricultural transformation, women and youth empowerment, value chain analysis and policy analysis. As a Land Accelerator partner, AAA will deliver acceleration for growth stage restoration entrepreneurs from Lake Kivu and Rusizi River Basin landscape in Rwanda and Burundi.
	Management for Development Foundation Global (MDF) is an organization that provides learning trajectories, enterprise development, partnership services, and an African regional training institute, providing both virtual and face-to-face training for individuals, companies and networks. They empower others to create impact and have been doing so for entrepreneurs since 2014. They have also implemented land restoration, reforestation and agricultural development projects in Central Africa. MDF has deep roots in Africa, with permanent offices as well as local project offices and team members in Ghana, Kenya, D.R. Congo, Rwanda, Benin and Uganda since 2000. As a Land Accelerator partner, MDF Afrique Central will deliver incubation for early-stage entrepreneurs and acceleration for growth stage restoration entrepreneurs from Lake Kivu and Rusizi River Basin landscape in the DRC and MDF West Africa will deliver incubation for early-stage and acceleration for growth stage restoration entrepreneurs from the Ghana Cocoa Belt in Ghana.
	Mt. Kenya Hub is a registered non-profit organization that has, over the last eight years, engaged in environmental, social & economic transformation projects in Kenya. Its core activities include; incubation & acceleration, research, project management, fund management, co-working space, and consultancies. By cultivating a free and fully serviced co-working space, they provide MSMEs with space to incubate, grow, co-create, and share peer learning. They have incubated and graduated hundreds of MSMEs and implemented climate change and restoration focused initiatives on behalf of clients including; UNEP, FAO, Conservation International, and GIZ. As a Land Accelerator partner, Mt. Kenya Hub will deliver incubation for early-stage companies and acceleration for growth stage restoration entrepreneurs from Greater Rift Valley landscape in Kenya.
	WYLDE International, based at the SNDBX, is an unmatched ecosystem of performance experts that provides strategic planning and business coaching services to ambitious SMEs to ensure that they are not only profitable, but sustainable in their way of doing business. They aim to empower small businesses through strategic guidance and access to finance. WYLDE works with ambitious entrepreneurs seeking to grow and scale their businesses while delivering impactful products and services to their customers. WYLDE, founded in 2004, has worked with over 7,500 entrepreneurs and enabled many of them to grow their incomes and profitability and create vital jobs. As a Land Accelerator partner, WYLDE will provide capacity building through mentorship to early- and growth stage restoration entrepreneurs in the Greater Rift Valley landscape in Kenya.