We are implementing Food Trade ESA in a consortium led by Development Alternatives Inc. (DAI) Europe. The vision of Food Trade ESA programme is to unlock trade across borders and across the region to get more food to more people in Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda (East Africa) and Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe (Southern Africa). We are managing both the Challenge Fund - which is catalyzing innovative private sector investment in regional staple food markets, and the Development Fund, which is facilitating dialogue and action around the key blockages to the development of regional staple food markets and to fund targeted interventions in partnership with relevant institutions, organizations and companies.

Through the Challenge Fund, Food Trade ESA challenges for-profit companies to develop new business models that provide solutions to failures in the market for staple food while delivering commercial benefits. They are provided with partial funding (of up to 49%) ranging from £450,000 to just under £1 million, to fund competitively selected investment ideas. The programme whose implementation started in 2013 is set to close in 2018.