Hi, my name is Emilie. For the past two months, I worked with the NGO Fair and Square via All Out Africa. Fair and Square is an organisation that supports women and youth entrepreneurs in Eswatini by strengthening their skills through training, trade, and advocacy.

After almost five years working as a consultant in sustainable finance in Belgium and Germany, I decided to take a few months break to experience humanitarian work while being emerged in a new culture. I chose the project with Fair and Square because its mission resonated with me and was close to my field.  I had never heard of Eswatini before, but quickly succumbed to the charm of the country and its people.

My main assignment was to support a women-owned agricultural cooperative producing sustainable agri-food products. I had the chance to meet the women behind the cooperative and to attend their Board meetings, which helped me better understand the specific challenges small farming organisations face in Eswatini – such as limited access to financing, payment delays, lack of infrastructure for distribution, and gaps in managerial skills.

In this context, I initiated the development of a risk assessment grid based on prior literature. This tool is designed to support agricultural cooperatives or smallholder farmers in the country to better capture their risk profile and to define appropriate risk management solutions tailored to their specific context.  I also gathered information on the requirements for exporting food products to the European market, as the cooperative is now seeking to expand its reach beyond Eswatini.

In addition to my main assignment, I also had the opportunity to spend time to other community projects outside my field, such as homework club, small building activities, or even creating new recipes to help a local producer market her chili sauce.