Trade not Aid

Aduna's model provides an alternative to aid in rural Africa. Under the existing aid model, millions of dollars are spent every year on development projects to equip small-scale farmers with the tools to grow the latest "cash-crop".

The expensive trucks drive in, the state-of-the-art equipment is installed and the crops are grown, only for the project to ultimately fail because no thought has been given to how the farmers are actually going to sell the products once they are grown.  

In the end, the farmers have no choice but to uproot the crops and return to their subsistence lifestyles. The next year, a new project will start - and fail - and so the cycle continues, leaving families stuck in a vicious cycle of poverty and aid-dependency.

Aduna does things a little differently. We create markets for under-used natural products that already grow abundantly or that can be easily cultivated by small producers in rural Africa.

We choose products that are exceptionally nutrient-dense and therefore have high value in the global health and beauty industry - products like baobab. We then start by creating demand for these products through marketing; educating the public about the products' health and beauty benefits and raising awareness through campaigns like #MakeBaobabFamous.

Once the market has been established, we plug rural farmers directly into it via our smallholder supply chain, creating life-changing sustainable income flows - through trade not aid.

Get involved with our campaign to #MakeBaobabFamous and transform millions of lives here.

Read more about our business model in The Guardian.