The West Africa chapter is headquartered in Lagos, Nigeria, and working across the region, but most active in Nigeria, Ghana, Mali, Senegal, and Cote d’Ivoire.
Its goal is to create an inclusive platform for all stakeholders and leverage ANDE’s global connections within the local network through collaboration and relationship building, convenings, and knowledge sharing.
Chapter Activities
Networking and fostering connections: Regular chapter events, both formal and informal, provide time for ANDE members to network, learn, and share best practices. They include member meetings, happy hours, webinars, roundtables, and workshops on different themes. We also facilitate tailored introductions and connections among members to foster collaborations and partnerships among practitioners in the SGB ecosystem and strengthen the ecosystem through the region.
Knowledge sharing: The chapter shares regular updates, including upcoming opportunities, events, and publications, with SGB stakeholders active in the region through a public newsletter, chapter updates for members, and regular promotion on our social media and other channels. We are always eager to partner to tell the story of SGBs and our members’ work.
Research: Our research initiatives build the knowledge base for SGB support organizations to improve their effectiveness and create thriving entrepreneurial ecosystems. ANDE conducts both high level and specialized regional research on SGB networks and trends, which provide major value to our members. Some of our recent research work relevant to the region includes entrepreneurial ecosystem snapshots in Ghana and Nigeria, and region-wide research on impact investing, incubators and accelerators.
Funding: ANDE provides regular funding opportunities to both members and non-members to both drive greater resources to organizations supporting SGBs in developing economies and ensure ANDE member expertise is leveraged efficiently. Funding opportunities are meant to spur more creative and collaborative investments in SGBs and uncover how SGBs contribute to poverty alleviation and economic growth. Recent opportunities in the region include the ANDE-IDRC Joint Call for Expressions of Interest on the experience of women entrepreneurs participating in venture accelerator programs.
Learning and training: The chapter convenes learning groups on various topics, including metrics and impact, youth and talent, and SGB finance, and has led trainings on metrics, talent development, gender equality, investment management, impact investing, and more. ANDE has a particular focus on promoting impact measurement and management among the network. We encourage knowledge sharing, support the adoption of a common language to measure performance, and encourage exploration of new methods and tools to enable more efficient and useful measurement practices.
"This knowledge brief aims to provide an overview of the IMM landscape in Nigeria and draws lessons from organizations who have IMM experience in West Africa. The knowledge brief focuses on providing an understanding of how impact is defined by some organizations, what elements they take into consideration when designing an IMM strategy, why they measure impact, the upsides and downsides of standardization, challenges they face in measuring and managing impact, and how they utilize data to drive impact. The knowledge brief also shares the IMM journey of three organizations: Aspire Coronation Trust (ACT) Foundation, LEAP Africa and MBC Africa, and provides recommendations on implementing IMM."
"The number of accelerators has increased considerably in various emerging market countries in the past decade, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. This includes Nigeria, the largest economy in West Africa. One important question then is: are these incubators and accelerators effective in providing support to enterprises in emerging markets, especially youth-led enterprises? This knowledge brief seeks to capture information from our study of incubators and accelerators in Nigeria in relation to their effectiveness in supporting youth-led enterprises."
"The Landscape for Impact Investing in West Africa is a state of the market analysis of the impact investing industry in the region. The report includes regional findings from 15 countries, as well as dedicated chapters covering the most active markets: Nigeria, Ghana, and Senegal. Across the region, investors highlight opportunities for impact and financial return, particularly in the key sectors of energy, financial technologies, and agriculture.
The landscape study is based on thorough analysis of relevant literature, large volumes of transaction data, and extensive interviews with key industry stakeholders. Detailed country chapters include information on the supply of capital by investor type, investment opportunities by sector, and regulatory considerations and hurdles for impact investors and investees."
This two-day, highly interactive conference aims to connect local and international ANDE members and partners working in or with interest in West Africa; promote best practice ideas for the development of the SGB sector; feature practitioner-led breakout sessions on issues such as policy, gender lens, impact measurement, and impact investment; discuss changes in the West African entrepreneurial ecosystem and potential opportunities which actors need to prepare for; and sustain the growing network of West African SGB support providers as a platform for promotion, networking and collaboration.
This group seeks to create and share knowledge, and identify gaps and opportunities around metrics and impact to support intermediary organizations and entrepreneurs in the region.
This group aims to bring together actors in the entrepreneurial ecosystem together to share knowledge and best practices in SGB financing in the West African region.
This group aims to bring together stakeholders in the SGB sector to share best practices, present new research, and discuss issues around talent management in the West African region.
ANDE’s Digitalization Learning Labs are a series of global workshops to support the digitalization of the SGB sector by facilitating knowledge exchange among practitioners and assessing the needs of intermediaries.
Each chapter's gender equality action lab will ideate and prototype solutions to systemic gender inequities in the SGB sector. They convene regularly and will conclude with a funding challenge to scale promising solutions.
