Self Help Africa worked with approximately 2.2 million people across 33 development projects in 2018, its annual meeting heard last week.

The organisation’s largest project was in Kenya, where more than €24m was being invested over a five-year period in strengthening agri-business and creating new markets for 100,000 small-scale farmers.

And in Malawi, Self Help Africa was leading a consortium that was establishing more than 13,000 ‘farmer field schools,’ to both promote new crops, and provide training to over 400,000 farming households, chairman Tom Kitt said.

Group CEO Ray Jordan said that Self Help Africa was at the mid-point of its five year strategic plan ‘Embracing Change,’ and would be concluding a mid-term review of this policy in the months ahead. 

The meeting, which also launched the organisation’s Annual Report heard that while 2018 had been a strong year for Self Help Africa, each of the group subsidiaries, Partner Africa, TruTrade and Traidlinks, were also performing well.

In 2018, Self Help Africa concluded a merger in Northern Ireland with War on Want NI in Spring, and hosted fundraising galas in each of Dublin, Galway, London, Shrewsbury, Boston and New York – attracting more than 2,000 people.

A Self Help Africa-led consortium also secured a new four-year extension from Irish Aid to run WorldWise Global Schools, the Irish government’s national programme for Development Education.

The AGM elected four new directors – Martin Ryan, Olivia Buckley, Catherine Fitzgibbon and Sheila Walsh. They replace Michael Hoevel, Emer Kenny, Michael Maguire and Claire Fourel on the 12-member board.