Climate Resilient Agriculture and Community Empowerment in the Central African Republic: The Inspiring Story of Initiative Noah
Meet Stéphanie Légie Mbombate, the founder of Initiative Noah for Africa, a social enterprise dedicated to promoting climate adaptation and improving agriculture in the conflict-ridden Central African Republic. Through Initiative Noah, Stéphanie empowers her community and promotes organic food production and entrepreneurial culture, and fights sexual and gender-based violence. Winning the YouthADAPT Solutions Challenge has offered Stéphanie financial resources and mentorship to strengthen her enterprise and her causes.
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limate change poses a significant threat to Central Africa, a region already grappling with a long history of armed conflict, and food and economic insecurity.
Increasingly unpredictable and intensifying rainfall in the Central African Republic has led to recurring floods that drive thousands of people from their homes, placing them at greater risk of food insecurity and disease outbreaks like cholera and malaria.
In a country where 70 percent of the population relies on agriculture for survival, this unpredictability, coupled with a scarcity of resources such as water and cattle grazing grounds, fuels conflict between herders and farmers and has led to a struggling agricultural sector.
Well aware of farmers’ and young persons’ needs, Stéphanie Légie Mbombate set out to improve life in her community in the prefecture of Kémo, Central African Republic, through the enterprise she founded, Initiative Noah for Africa.
Initiative Noah focuses on improved market gardening activities and manual cultivation through semi-mechanized methods. Through Initiative Noah, Stéphanie also runs educational talks on organic food production, entrepreneurial culture, and Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV).
Initiative Noah is one of 15 winners of the first African Youth Adaptation (YouthADAPT) Solutions Challenge, an annual competition launched in 2021 by the Global Center on Adaptation (GCA), the African Development Bank (AfDB), and the Climate Investment Fund (CIF).
In an interview with GCA, Stéphanie, Executive Director of Initiative Noah, reflects on how the financial resources and mentorship she gained from YouthADAPT have helped her strengthen her enterprise, and contribute to her community and to climate adaptation efforts in her country.
What climate-related challenges does your community, especially the youth, face in your daily lives?
The climate-related challenges of our community are on the level of food production. The climate is not conducive to a good agricultural yield, and the youth are faced with several challenges in terms of education, labor, especially in the agricultural sector and youth living in rural areas.
On a daily level we are confronted with problems of infrastructure, transportation, and social and economic constraints in the implementation of our activities and also political problems that impact our activities and the yields of our enterprises.
What solutions did you find and what inspired you to start your business?
The solution I found has three main components: to promote employment in rural areas, and fight against food insecurity and SGBV in rural areas. I have worked on a social assessment and sensitization as well as educational talks to explain to communities the importance of organic food production and the importance of entrepreneurial culture as well as the fight against SGBV.
What changes have you observed as a result of your solution? How did this solution impact your community, climate adaptation and your daily life?
We have observed the community engagement of youth to strongly contribute to the development of the agricultural sector and the entrepreneurial spirit, which is a very exciting impact for change and achieves the set goals.
My solution contributes to job creation in rural areas, innovative agricultural production to fight against food insecurity, and to the fight against SGBV in rural areas.
In my daily life, I used to be a pessimistic person in my decisions but now I have become optimistic and have gained very relevant experiences in social, technical, structural management and financial management.
What are some challenges and obstacles that you encountered when trying to implement your solution? How did YouthADAPT help you overcome these obstacles?
We encountered challenges such as movable and immovable infrastructure, a lack of logistical resources, social factors, the high cost of importing materials and a lack of qualified human resources.
YouthADAPT helped us overcome these obstacles through supervision, financial support and its mentoring program.
What led you to apply for the YouthADAPT challenge last year and how have you used the resources you received from the program?
The context of my country and the conditions of food production, which is still at the primary stage; the challenges of developing the food sector, despite the fact that we have arable land; the social challenges related to the lack of employment for young people that leave us vulnerable; and poverty that leads to great political, social and educational insecurity – these issues led me to apply for YouthADAPT.
The resources received from the program will be used for three main lines of activities which are to promote employment in rural areas, fight against food insecurity and fight against gender-based violence in rural areas.
What are the next steps for you? What are your hopes and ambitions?
My next steps are to implement the objectives that we have set for ourselves: to create jobs that will reduce the vulnerability of youth and poverty, to increase food production in order to fight against food insecurity and to contribute to social protection against gender-based violence.
Our hope is to duplicate this model of social business for the benefit of other prefectures of the Central African Republic and even in other African countries.
One ambition is to contribute strongly to the development of the agricultural sector in rural areas and to fight against unemployment in order to make the youth resilient.
In what ways can young entrepreneurs in your area act to help adapt to climate impacts and what advice would you give other young African entrepreneurs?
To promote adaptation to these impacts, it is important to sustain support in terms of capacity building on the context of climate change, and to offer other funding opportunities to young people to accelerate economic growth and contribute strongly to the development and resilience of youth.
It is important for every young African entrepreneur to have a sense of leadership based on the realization of development projects, knowing that many of us are interested in embarking on a business creation project, but few are able to take the plunge.
Worse, among those who do, some of them quickly face obstacles that push them to give up after a few months. We generally think that a good idea is enough to create a company. After my journey in the world of entrepreneurship, I realized that this thought was wrong. A good idea alone is not enough to create a company. You need tips and techniques to succeed in entrepreneurship.
Some entrepreneurial tips that will allow you as a young entrepreneur or an experienced entrepreneur to overcome the classic obstacles that all entrepreneurs in the world face are to get your idea right, become your own boss, take on new challenges, create your own job, make more money, be more free, organize your time and give meaning to your life.
The YouthADAPT Challenge, part of the Africa Adaptation Acceleration Program (AAAP), provides enterprises run by young African entrepreneurs with funding of up to US$ 100,000 and a one-year accelerator program that includes capacity building training, mentorship and coaching.
The AAAP is an Africa-owned, Africa-led initiative spearheaded by GCA and the African Development Bank with the support of the African Union and African leaders. The AAAP is mobilizing $25 billion for adaptation investments in Africa in the next five years. GCA’s AAAP Upstream Financing Facility is mainstreaming the best climate adaptation science and solutions into programs across Africa. In its 24 months of operation, the Upstream Financing Facility has influenced more than $5.2 billion in downstream investments with Multilateral Development Banks in 27 African nations.
