Acep Cameroun is a microfinance institution specialized in financing SMEs from urban areas of Douala, Yaounde and Bafoussam. Acep is now a 5 in-country MFI network.
PARTNERSHIP WITH I&P
I&P is committed alongside ACEP CAMEROON:
• To organize the transformation process of ACEP Cameroon to a private financial institution
• To contribute to the business plan elaboration and the round table constitution.
• To assure a regular operational monitoring
• To actively participate to the governance proceedings (audit comity and board of directors)
KEY IMPACTS
• Number of created jobs: 166
• Since 2005, ACEP has allowed more than 45 000 credits distributed to very small entrepreneurs (street food vendors, shoemakers, bayamselams)
• Incomes annual growth in average since 2007: +32%
Nutrizazais a social business fighting against children malnutrition. The company has developed a network of baby restaurants (hotelin’jazakely) alongside with the commercial selling of “Koba Aina”, a range of enhanced baby food. The company seeks for the largest distribution of a good quality aliment for infants, and especially among the poorest while sticking to an enterprise-based approach as a financially sustainable business. Nutrizaza has also undertaken a campaign against malnutrition through information campaigns and a watch over the babies’ weight.
"Koba Aina" is a baby flour complementary with breast-feeding. It is produced and packed with local raw material based on a nutritional formula elaborated by Taf, a Malagasy agribusiness partner. The production is controlled and in compliance with international standards. It is distributed in individual packs or ready-made by Nutrizaza field animators during neighborhood tours. As to now, it gives the best quality/price ratio on the market.
Presentation of Nutri'Zaza - 2015
THE ENTREPRENEUR
Mieja Vola RAKOTONARIVO est responsable du projet Nutri’zaza depuis Octobre 2004. Ingénieur en industries agroalimentaires et diplômée d’un Master en technologies agroalimentaires elle est responsable du projet de création de Nutri’zaza pour le compte du GRET. Elle gère l’équipe de Nutri’zaza et met en œuvre avec l’équipe les activités prévues pour atteindre les objectifs définis. Elle s’occupe plus particulièrement des relations entre Nutri’zaza et les institutions extérieures.
PARTNERSHIP WITH I&P
I&P committed alongside with Nutrizaza
• As a strategic and financial partner, chairing at the board
• Undertaking technical assistance missions, with a view to empower the leading team
KEY IMPACTS
• About 100 jobs created, including 70% women
• 34 Hotelin-Jazakely ("restaurants for babies") and more than 9 million units of KobaAina distributed in 2015
• Intervention area : 33 municipalities and 112 fokontany (villages, neighbourhoods, etc)
• 116 local suppliers
• Information campaigns towards young mothers
• Sanitary issues : Decrease of child mortality and improvement in the anthropometric criteria of young Malagasy children (weight and size)
• In the medium-run, increase of education enrolment rate due tie the decrease of illness risks
Cofipêche is settled in Abidjan and locally produces knotless fishing nets sold in Ivory Coast and the sub-region. They are used for surface fishing and fish farming. Both factory trawlers and traditional fishermen prioritize this kind of nets for they do not hurt the fishes. Those international regulation-compliant nets designed to save the natural stocks from over-fishing are locally crafted from imported nylon wires. Cofipêche is the only Subsaharan African factory positioned on this industrial segment. All equivalent products are imported from Asia.
THE ENTREPRENEUR
Sidi Coulibaly spent most of his career in textile industry at commercial management positions (CFCI, Uniwax, Filtisac, IPS). He took over the existing company Cofipêche in 2004.
PARTNERSHIP WITH I&P
I&P committed alongside with Cofipêche
• To bring the financial support needed for recovery after the 2011 economic crisis
• To accompany the market positioning on product diversification
• To help strengthening the commercial segment of the company
• To seek for optimization of working capital
KEY IMPACTS
• Local offer facing informal and foreign competition
Colaser is an ophthalmologic clinic aiming at responding to the needs of a broad and diverse clientele such as individuals, employees under healthcare programs, retired people, middle-class people, and foreigners. The clinic has followed an unfluctuating growth since its creation. It carries out 10,000 consultations and 1,400 medical procedures every year, among which 110 retinal detachments and as many refractive eye surgery.
Colaser stands as the most important ophthalmologic center in terms of equipment and expertise. It substitutes to medical travels in Europe for numerous diagnostics and cares. Within a few years, Colaser has become a model for West-African ophthalmological clinics, and attracts a steady flow of patients from neighbor countries.
ENTREPRENEURS
Colaser was created in 2007 when the care supply was highly insufficient. It was initiated by 4 doctors: Pr. Lam, Dr. Seck, Dr. Jouni and Dr. Jaffar. Aliou Lam and Makane Seck are military doctors and surgeons. They formerly worked at the Hopital Principal of Dakar and took the chance, while leaving the army, to settle in Senegal and invest in the private sector.
PARTNERSHIP WITH I&P
I&P committed alongside with Colaser :
• To provide a key financial and strategic support at the company’s creation
• To grant the founders a loan that would enable them to purchase high-technology pieces of equipment
• To strengthen the administrative service of the clinic.
CAROTECH Benin produces outside tiles, pavement blocks and other construction cement-based inputs. These are processed without any thermal energy. Carotech’s sector of activity is lifted by a swelling urban expansion in Benin and various state programs to renovate public infrastructures. The products are addressed to a diversified clientele: individuals, public collectivities, private companies…
THE ENTREPRENEUR
Yves Modest Agbo is a young Beninese entrepreneur who, once having finished his economics studies in France at Montpellier University has immediately made the choice to create an economic activity in his country, in the industrial sector with a strong local added value.
PARTNERSHIP WITH I&P
I&P committed alongside Carotech Benin to:
• Enable a rapid establishment of the production
• Provide a technical assistance for organization and formalization of the financial and accounting management.
• Provide support of an expertise in term of commercial organization policy
IMPACTS
• Creation of a local industry of construction materials, in substitution of Chinese and European importations.
Fides Senegal Microfinance is a young microfinance institution that aims to provide financial services to urban and rural population located in northern Senegal: solidarity and individual loans, savings, insurance and mobile banking.
Headquartered in St. Louis, it opened offices in Luga and Touba, and will settle one new agency every year in the North of the country, where the offer is lower than in Dakar. It enjoys the support of FIDES consultants in the establishment of microfinance business (corporations) in the rural world.
PARTNERSHIP WITH I&P
I&P committed alongside with Fides Microfinance Sénégal:
• Being the first investor to confirm its commitment to FMS, to pilot the project building
• To participate in strategic discussions with the management team (Governance, etc.).
KEY IMPACTS
• Access to financial services in rural and peri-urban areas: more than 21,000 borrowers (including 85% women) and 37 500 savers
• 154 jobs maintained in 2015, including more than 60% women
• 35 local suppliers
• Demonstration of microfinance viability in the private sector in West Africa, where NGOs and cooperatives are privileged actors
CAT LOGISTICS performs customs clearance and freight transport. The company manages goods and shipping from their arrival in one of the sub-regional ports directly to the client. It has subsidiaries in the three coastal countries of the region: Cotonou in Benin, Tema in Ghana and Lome in Togo.
CAT LOGISTICS has experienced very rapid growth in business volume since 2008, supported by major contracts including AREVA and the World Food Program (WFP). It operates in a particularly buoyant market with oil and mining large-scale investments. It is the only Nigerian-founded company of this size that remains independent from international firms. In 2013-2014, CAT partnered with the UN for the peace keeping mission in Mali. The company loaded equipment, vehicles and over goods from Abidjan port in Ivory Coast to the Niger River and Gao in Mali.
THE ENTREPRENEUR
Ali Djimba holds a master's degree specializing in transit and logistics, and has 30 years of experience in the sector.
PARTNERSHIP WITH I&P
I&P committed alongside CAT Logistics:
• By increasing the equity of the company
• Pressing the structure of governance and management
•By implementing a management control and stable and effective financial procedures to better manage the business
• Providing assistance for the development of the financial policy of the company and obtaining bank financing
KEY IMPACTS
• Development of a local player in the logistics and transit in a landlocked country
Created in 1980, CDS is a Mauritanian company involved in energy and water access for all and especially in the rural zones where the populations are deprived from this access.
Its activity is three-fold:
Public service delegation : water and electricity distribution in partnership with state and local authorities
Installment and maintenance for electro-mechanic works: potable water access, hybrid or solar systems, water treatment plants, network extension…
Distribution of water and electricity equipment working on renewable energies: solar heater, refrigerator, wind turbines, immersed pumps…)
CDS is one of the companies featured in the project Small is Powerful
THE ENTREPRENEUR
Sidi Khalifou is graduated from Sup’Meca Paris where he volunteered at Engineer without Borders. He was a project manager for the GRET and for ECODEV an NGO he co-founded committed to local development and environmental issues in West Africa.
He joined CDS as a shareholder in 2007, then run by his father. He took the lead of the company in 2010.
PARTNERSHIP WITH I&P
I&P committed alongside with CDS
• To accompany the company’s development through additional public service delegations contracts
• To enable the company to sell and distribute equipment in rural areas
EXIT
In partnership with CDS’ promoter, Sidi Khalifou, I&P sold its shares in 2016 to Engie Rassembleurs d’Energies and the Monaco-based impact firm SADEV. Both these partners will continue to support CDS in its development strategy and impact objectives.
KEY IMPACTS
• 20 jobs created (2015 data)
• 30 800 households given access to drinking water, which represents close to 1,400 irrigation systems set up by CDS
• Water and electricity access equipment sold in 2015: 423 solar kits, 59 solar water heaters and more than 20 pump stations
• 17 national suppliers
• Enhancement of renewable energy-powered practices
• Private sector strengthening and Knock-on effect on the economic environment (agriculture, manufacture…)
Viseo distributes and sells optical items through a retail network in Abidjan. Settled in 3 different shops, the network plans to expand all over the country. In Ivory Coast, the formal offer is crippled by broadly unaffordable prices and endangered by more attractive informal offer provided by “ground chemistries”. With lower prices and ready availability, these “ground chemistries” provide cheap quality goods. Viseo intends to fill this gap with free sight-examinations offered to all and information campaigns organized in schools, private companies and communities
THE ENTREPRENEUR
Franck Touré is an optician and an optometrist. He chairs the Ivorian association of the eye professionals. He has worked in France for a long time then came back to Ivory Coast to lead a famous French optical outlet in Abidjan. He also teaches at the Optometry School of Ivory Coast. He manages Investissements & Développement, a holding promoting development through the support brought to SMEs, which is behind the group “Vue & Vision”. He has long strived in favor of the access to affordable care for all.
PARTNERSHIP WITH I&P
I&P is committed alongside with Viseo
• To promote the brand launch : campaign, shop opening
• To provide commercial and financial support
• To undertake the recovery plan after the Ivorian political crisis
IMPACTS
• 2,000 persons are given free screening examinations each year
• Over a hundred good-quality equipment distributed each year in Ivory Coast
GENEMARK processes generic drugs (anti-infectious, anti-parasitic, anti-inflammatory …) and aims at the largest distribution scale thanks to an offer 30% to 50% cheaper than classical drugs. Genemark developers favor the production of liquid drugs (15 references over 27) in order to reduce overdose risks, particularly high in paludism treatments for children.
Report on Genemark (in French)
THE ENTREPRENEUR
Gisele Etamé decided in 2003 to launch her own pharmaceutical laboratory. As a Doctor in pharmacy, she took the opportunity to develop pharmaceutical products available for all after the Cameroonian Ministry of Health authorized the sale of generic medicine. Thanks to her strife over the last decade, Genemark is now a major label in the local pharmaceutical industry.
PARTNERSHIP WITH I&P
I&P is committed alongside GENEMARK:
• To enable the reference range enlargement
• To finance the production capacity growth
• To keep a watch over the products quality
• To supervise the deployment of a sales force
• To improve the governance
KEY IMPACTS
• Number of jobs created or maintained: 20
• Genemark has improved the access to health by offering medicines 30 to 50% less expensive than licensed medicines
• Turnover annual growth on average since 2008: +14%
English
Français
