back to main menu

2022 ANNUAL REPORT

Global Annual Report 2022

Southern Africa 2022

31 December 2022

In 2022, Solidaridad in Southern Africa trained 18,959 smallholder farmers in good practices and 90,000 farmers implemented good practices as a result of our trainings. Around 22,000 received last-mile services, such as soil testing, seed credit schemes, market linkages, logistics, weather information and digital extension support from service providers. We influenced 13 policies in the cotton, tea and food products sectors to address issues of sustainable production and consumption practices, fair value distribution, decent work, gender and social inclusion, and market access.

A worker on Sungula Farm in South Africa transplants spinach

Highlights

Cotton Mozambique

Cotton

Under RECLAIM Sustainability! programme, five policies were influenced. Seven multi-stakeholder  dialogues were convened and five recommendations submitted as part of influencing policies around labour and gender in Mozambique and Zambia.

Tea Malawi

Tea

Women form a large percentatge of the labour force attached to the tea sector. In Malawi, the project has revised the gender policy as well as the occupational health and safety policies which will be enforced at industry level, these exist to increase worker’s safety within the sector. In Mozambique the tea sector is at its infancy, as a result the project has influenced the labour and taxation policies of the estates to help make the sector more sustainable.

Agroforestry

Agroforestry

Under the AFR100 project, the projected 150,000 plants of different varieties in the nurseries were planted in preparation for reaching a target of 135,000 trees after transplanting.

Fruit and Veg South Africa

Fruits & Vegetables

A total of 1,370 workers participated under the SEF project — which creates a credible pathway to employment in the agricultural sector — in nine sites across three provinces in South Africa. Farmers increased their labor force with participants in the project, increased their productivity per hectare, and some have even expanded their production into additional hectares.

Livestock Southern Africa

Livestock

1,500  farmers were trained in animal health and nutrition, silage making, fodder production and preservation. Demonstration plots were set up in Malawi and Zimbabwe.

Soy Southern Africa

Soy

In Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia, we trained 17,060 lead farmers in good practices such as safe use of pesticides and soil conservation. Some 39,088 smallholder farmers adopted good practices, leading to a total 218,243 hectares under sustainable management.

Leather production Zimbabwe

Leather

In Zimbabwe, we trained 21 participants, each representing an Small and Medium Enterprises cluster,on footwear design and manufacturing, increasing their participation in the leather value chain.

Results

67 thousand

farmers with increased income

310 thousand

Hectares brought under sustainable management

32 thousand

farmers benefit from improved services

To general Southern Africa page

Forging ahead

Progress in 2022

By working on four levels of intervention simultaneously, Solidaridad in Southern Africa managed to establish more lasting sustainable production in the region.

A total of 18,959 smallholder (fruits & vegetables, soy, livestock) farmers were trained in good practices by the end of 2022 giving us a cumulative figure of 22,603 since the start of the Practice for Change programme in 2016. A total of 89,874 farmers were implementing good practices by the end of the reporting period. The biggest contributor to these figures is the soy programme with around 17,060 farmers trained in good practices and 79,100 implementing these good practices.

In 2022, Solidaridad had 310,143 hectares under sustainable management practices across Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The largest contributors to this figure are the soy and livestock programmes with 218,243 hectares and 80,000 hectares, respectively. The fruit and vegetables programme had 10,900 hectares under sustainable management practices. The balance of 1000 is a contribution of the AFR100 programme.

About 22,411 smallholder farmers received direct or indirect services from us in 2022. Kvuno (a decentralised digital service that provides last mile services to smallholder farmers at reduced cost) provided services to the smallholder farmers including digitisation of farmer groups, provision of extension information, soil testing and input supply particularly certified soy and potato seed. Under the soy programme, Kvuno managed to continue with the provision of soy seed credit services resulting in improved productivity, incomes and livelihoods of the farmers. Soil testing has been a key feature in the Soy and Fruits and Vegetables programme. By the end of 2022, we had managed to conduct 7000 soil tests for the smallholder farmer within and outside our PfC programmes.

In Mozambique, the Agri-hubs, established through Kvuno, assisted fruits and vegetable farmers with market access and access to seed inputs. Kvuno provided smallholder farmers who produced under different planting programs with seed inputs. Through the planting programmes, the farmers supplied vegetables that were produced back to Kvuno through off-take agreements. 

In Zambia, we supported the establishment of nurseries for avocado, citrus and vegetables among clusters of farmers. Ten nurseries were established in Katete, seven in Chongwe and four in Mazabuka, with the community members providing building materials, land, labour and security. Seedlings produced from the nurseries were shared and distributed among the farmers. The project delivered training on the establishment of nurseries, budding, grafting, tree management and good agricultural practices to 1,070 smallholder fruit and vegetable farmers in all the 3 sites (Katete, Chongwe and Mazabuka). 

To enhance access to finance, we rolled out Village Savings and Lending Associations (VSLAs) schemes under the Soy and Livestock programmes in Mozambique and Zambia. Under the Soy programme, we supported 50 VSLAs in Tete Mozambique. The VSLAs were trained and helped to be more organised. This has enabled the farmers to have access to finance to buy farm inputs and respond to household needs. We also established Village Savings & Lending schemes under the Livestock programme in Zambia to address the continued issue of inclusive access to loans and credit. About 420 loans have been issued since 2019. We also supported young women and men from Mazabuka Province with business and financial literacy training using the Malim’ Bewu model. This included hand leathercraft as a way of adding value and improving income at the household level. The supported youth participants (52), were able to generate income from the sale of leather and some of the proceeds they made were reinvested into village banking. Crowdfunding platform Plus Plus has also been rolled out in Mozambique where there has been a show of interest from emerging smallholder commercial farmers and the ABSA (see also the access to finance section).

To enhance access to finance, we rolled out Village Savings and Lending Associations (VSLAs) schemes under the Soy and Livestock programmes in Mozambique and Zambia. Under the Soy programme, we supported 50 VSLAs in Tete Mozambique. The VSLAs were trained and helped to be more organised. This has enabled the farmers to have access to finance to buy farm inputs and respond to household needs. We also established saving and loan programmes under the livestock programme in Zambia to address the continued issue of inclusive access to loans and credit. About 420 loans have been issued since 2019. We also supported young women and men from Mazabuka Province with business and financial literacy training using the Malim’ Bewu model. This included hand leathercraft as a way of adding value and improving income at the household level. The supported youth participants (52), were able to generate income from the sale of leather and some of the proceeds they made were reinvested into village banking. Plus Plus (a crowdfunding platform for farmers) has also been rolled out in Mozambique where there has been a show of interest from emerging smallholder commercial farmers and the ABSA (see more details under the access to finance section).

Solidaridad managed to influence 13 policies through various advocacy initiatives that include 27 multi-stakeholder dialogues and submission of 15 policy recommendations in tea, cotton and local food systems sectors. In Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia, we focused on mobilizing supply chain actors to come together in a structured and inclusive way to harmonize their efforts in improving the performance of the cotton and tea sectors, as well as influence dialogue on sustainable local food systems. 

Studies were conducted to further unearth gender and social inclusion (GESI) challenges, policy obstacles, and opportunities in Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia. Furthermore, gender and social inclusion dialogues which were convened with government departments at local levels, farmers, farmer representatives and communities and ginner companies led to a resolution to institute structured multi-stakeholder dialogues at local levels. National platforms were also convened to discuss and to prioritize key policy issues based on the baseline and gender and social inclusion reports. 

Capacity-building initiatives were also conducted to strengthen civil society organizations and the multi-stakeholder platforms that have become a vehicle through which the voice of farmers and other industry stakeholder influence policy. We also supported the leadership training of the National Small Scale Tea Growers Association in Malawi, trained key stakeholders, and some civil society organizations on resource mobilization and fundraising, and facilitated participation in the Crop and Land Policy consultative review meetings.

Across different projects, farmers were linked to markets through capacity building of their ability to keep proper records and produce high-quality produce. The Soy framers were linked to Sunseed in Malawi, Mount Meru in Zambia and Escola De Pov in Mozambique under the PFC Soy and AGRc projects. Fruits and vegetables farmers were supported to retain their Local GAP certification in South Africa.  

In Mozambique, farmers were linked to the Mozambique municipal market through Kvuno. The local production standard for Mozambique (MozBopa) was adopted by the government of Mozambique and has been disseminated to the different provinces through the RS! Africa Foods project. This will enhance farmers’ access to markets for their fruits and vegetables. In Zambia the local food safety standard (ZAmGAPl)  is still under development. 

In the K’Lusa project in Zimbabwe and Malawi we completed market analysis studies and linked farmers to local buyers of Livestock and livestock products. In Malawi the marketing committees in the local Market centres in Balaka and Chikwawa districts were supported to review their bylaws which has helped to reactivate market days in the two districts. In Zambia under the PfC Livestock project the market centres in the Southern and Western provinces were assisted to procure and install facilities such as sprayraces, water tanks and boreholes to improve the functional ability of these centres. A stakeholder platform was held in Malawi in collaboration with CGIAR to test the Farmer2Market tool and promote its use.

Most Significant Changes

KATETE SOYBEAN FARMER PROVES THAT AGRICULTURE IS MORE THAN JUST COWS & PLOUGHS

As a result of solidaridad interventions which consist of access to certified seeds, inoculants and soil tests, the average productivity of soybeans in Zambia has been consistently increasing from 500kg per hectare in 2018 to 1120kg per hectare in 2021, highlighting the potential for smallholder farmers to benefit from soybean production to support sustainable livelihoods.

Read more
Gloria Mafojane stands in one of her farm tunnels.

BOLSTERING WOMEN IN AGRI-BUSINESS

Women make up almost fifty percent of the global agricultural labour force, but they are still a minority group in terms of land ownership, participation in decision making entities and access to credit and financial services. In this article, we showcase Gloria Mafojane, who became a full-time farmer after working as a seamstress for years.

Read more
A portrait of Mr. Goodson Kalolo, avocado farmer in Zambia

INCREASING DIGITAL ADOPTION

For 75 year-old avocado farmer Godson Kalolo technical assistance has been the key to growing from a smallholder into an entrepreneur, harvesting 18 tonnes of avocado and delivering to a major supermarket chain.

Read more

Innovative Sustainability Solutions

The power of innovation

Creating change that lasts

Digital tools help to increase the scale and durability of sustainability solutions. In all our solutions, gender and inclusion are at the center.

Farmers across the region are affected by climate change. The Practice for Change (PfC) project being implemented across the South African region takes into account supporting farmers to put in place mitigation measures against the impact of climate change. In the PFC livestock project in Zambia and the K’Lusa project Zimbabwe and Malawi farmers were trained on sustainable rangeland management. The farmers were also trained on how to use crop residues and locally available vegetation to make bales for livestock feed in winter. for example, in Chikwawa one of the lead farmers made over 50 surplus bales to sell to his fellow farmers. In Zambia, Solidaridad – in collaboration with the Zambia Development Trust – is piloting the use of Biochar to enhance soil fertility. This has been successful in Tanzania. The results of the pilot will be seen at the end of the 2022/23 cotton cropping season. In the PfC fruits and vegetables project, farmers were trained on the use of locally available materials to make compost and manure. One farmer in Zambia has established a fruit nursery and is growing his seedling using organically developed liquid fertilizer. This technology has been transferred to other regions of the country. Other farmers are using biogas digesters to generate fuel for home use and the remains as  organic fertilizer for their vegetables.

By the end of 2022/23 we had completed our piloting of the FarmImpact tool in the Chinyanja triangle demonstrating how to scale up the collection of farmer hazard exposure, vulnerability and their agricultural practices. These are the key components of the climate adaptation score calculation. With these parameters we have been able to demonstrate that we are able to generate recommendations for farmers and to nudge them to adapt better farming practices through our Z’wardy platform which rewards farmers for adopting good practices with cumulative points which they use to claim rewards such gumboots, hoes, spades etc.  

Building on both the RECLAIM Sustainability! programme baseline studies and gender and social inclusion reports, Solidaridad facilitated commodity-specific voice amplification dialogues in Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia. These engagements attracted attention and recognition from the CGIAR who have since partnered with us in the implementation and scaling of these activities in Zambia. Through the CGIAR’s additional financial support, we were able to strengthen our gender and social inclusion dialogues and ensure they form the basis for projects around voice amplification, gender and social inclusion across agribusiness value chains, policy, advocacy, innovation acceleration, etc. These commodity-specific dialogues have also enabled the team to learn about inclusive value chain opportunities across the tea, cotton and fruits and vegetables sectors, constraints and experiences related to programming of interventions aimed at advocacy, voice amplification and acceleration of farmer voices. This includes promoting gender and social inclusion, policy, advocacy, innovations as well as addressing identified issues across the supported sectors. The implementation of the GALS methodology in the K’Lusa project has enhanced participation of women and youth in the red meat value chain. 

Our seven year partnership with Crossroads International has led to us collaborating on joint funding proposal development focused on gender and the placements of two volunteers. Thus far, both their mandates ended in July 2022 and March 2023 respectively. Both were to some extent, instrumental in assisting the programme team in Zambia to develop business development strategies focused on gender inclusivity; mainstream interventions that integrate cultural nuances; enabled teams to go beyond numbers when monitoring and evaluating gender outcomes and  to relay gender messages in sensitive cultural environments. Through a minimal 6-month-grant, Crossroads also supported the implementation of the Towards sustainable livelihoods for women and girls through poultry production in Zambia project where Solidaridad empowered women and youth on leadership and business skills, and the management of a breed of dual purpose chickens called SASSO Village chickens. 

Several projects have supported farmers in terms of access to finance.  Under the K’lusa project in both Zimbabwe and Malawi several financial institutions were approached to develop financial products for smallholder livestock farmers. Some of the banks already have products that can be adjusted to suit the farmers. However due to the devaluation of the Malawi Kwacha and the changes in the lending policy for Zimbabwe that was not successful. The project opted to train farmers on financial literacy and support the establishment and strengthening of village saving and loans associations (VSLAs). The groupings will enhance the access to finance for their members. Saving and loan schemes were also capacitated in the soy industry in Mozambique to increase access to finance for farmers. In Mozambique and Zambia, through Kvuno, farmers were offered seeds on credit where they were expected to pay half of the money upon receipt of the certified seeds, and the remaining balance in cash or in the form of grain after harvesting. 

Under crowdforming platform PlusPlus there was a lot of interest in Mozambique from emerging farmers and other businesses to access funding. There was particular interest from Phoenix seed multiplication company to a request for up to Euro 200,000. The Mozambique team is supporting the application process. ABSA bank in Mozambique also expressed interest in Managing the Plus Plus account in Mozambique. However, they need to consult and meet the central bank requirements on this proposal. ABSA is a financial institution that also received money from the government for Microfinance of small and medium enterprises.

Digital Innovations

In this past year, Solidaridad and Kvuno in partnership had a chance to combine our bundled suite digital solutions into a project funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation. This project helped us to distinguish ongoing Solidaridad digital work (Kitovu) from the other commercial innovations that we had been developing for four years (including the spin-off of Kvuno). 

Our core digital team is still supporting Solidaridad projects, both within and beyond Southern Africa. In 2022, we were able to support the East and Central Africa team in Kenya and Uganda (in the From Climate Victims to Climate Heroes project), as well as in Tanzania (in the Passport for Coffee Export (PACE) project) with the registration of farmers using digital tools, such as ODK, and the issuing of Farmer Identity Cards (Farmer IDs) to these farmers through Hakiki (a new app to issue, replace and validate Farmer IDs in the field). We also supported our projects to build digital farming groups through a new interface called Sekls which was extended further during our joint hackathon attended by developers from East and Southern Africa in December 2022.

Our commitment to promote fair data and tool sharing inside and outside of Solidaridad continues. In May 2022 they organized a keynote conference on digital tool interoperability and data portability among various farmer support organizations in Malawi.

Through the CGIAR Excellence in Agronomy Initiative, which seeks to deliver science-based agriculture advice to smallholder farmers at scale, we also had the pleasure to host one of CGIAR’s use cases titled “co-creating digital agronomic advisories to improve soybean productivity, soil health and incomes in the Chinyanja Triangle” (Malawi/Mozambique/Zambia). This use case provides Solidaridad with co-funding worth USD 500,000 per year for the next three years. Through this partnership the Kitovu team will be collecting data using digital tools and feeding them into CGIAR’s Akilimo AI engine which will provide site-specific recommendations for the farmers. These recommendations will be delivered to the farmers through Kitovu’s Wadi chatbot.

Organization & Governance

A high-performance team

Walking the walk

Within the region, we continue to attract and retain a high-performance team and continue to build on our multidisciplinary capabilities and skill sets. In addition, we have also maintained a high level of integrity as staff members continued to deliver professional services to the beneficiaries across the region. The person of trust and the integrity advisor provided the necessary support and guidance on cases where there were concerns on the integrity. 

RS! Tea Multi-stakeholder dialogue convened in Malawi

As of December 2022, Solidaridad employed 77 staff in Southern Africa, across six countries of operation. We had a  65% to 35% male-to-female ratio. On average the cumulative full-time equivalent (FTE) stood at 63, which is slightly lower than our budgeted FTE of 84. Within the year, we were also able to accommodate four interns and volunteers through Solidaridad’s internship programme, as well as through our partnerships with Mastercard Fellows and Crossroads International.

The staff costs per FTE for the period ending in December 2022 was Euro 1,977,953 against a projected budget of Euro 1,831,135. The overspending of Euro 146,818 was due to the end of some projects within the year and low budget values of some of the existing projects.

Within the year 2022 there were quite a few staff movements in the region due to the financial challenges, project completions and shifting of staff to Kvuno. However, this stabilised by the end of the year. Discussions on the integration process between Solidaridad East, Central and Southern Africa and Solidaridad Southern Africa were accelerated by the respective management teams. This commenced with a strategy meeting held in Kenya to learn from one another and identify areas of synergy. The quick wins were inbusiness development, gender and scoial inclusion and digital. The programme implementation teams also increased their alignment under the RECLAIM Sustainability! programme due to shared goals and common commodities – cotton, tea and food products. A mid-year review meeting for the RECLAIM Sustainability! programme was hosted in Mozambique and attended by teams from East and Southern Africa. 
The Southern Africa team also continued to participate in network forums, such as the communities of practice, global expertise teams, and global linking and learning workshops. We also played an important role in the RECLAIM Sustainability! programme, Partnership Coordination Unit as some members from the region are supporting the programme cycle management and monitoring and evaluation of the global programme.

Solidaridad engaged in proactive and reactive fundraising to improve the region’s financial sustainability, where we submitted approximately 20 grant applications to external donors, with a success rate of 24%. Internally, we submitted three grant applications within the Solidaridad Network with a success rate of 67%. In addition to institutional funding, we strategically pursued opportunities from individual donors as a new source of funding. We further improved our diversification by securing funds from new donors including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC), the Netherlands Food Partnership (NFP), Southern African Development Community (SADC), AFR100 Initiative, and CGIAR. Our success to a large extent was hinged on our ability to collaborate with the most relevant partners for our resource mobilization efforts, including those in the private sector, research institutions, and other NGOs. . 

To further improve our financial sustainability and diversify our funding sources, we aggressively pursued unrestricted funding, submitting applications worth over Euro 1 million to organizations and initiatives, including Personia Foundation, WWF, the Food Planet Prize, and ONE Africa Award. Through this approach, we secured approximately Euro 471 through the 27 Voices for Climate Action Initiative led by WWF amongst others. 
To contribute to Solidaridad’s thought leadership agenda, we published an article on unrestricted climate finance promoting access to unrestricted funding from donors to create a conducive environment to maximize the potential impact within the development sector.

A baseline study was conducted for the project Promoting a competitive, inclusive and sustainable leather sector in Tanzania and Zimbabwe, funded by SADC. The key findings for Zimbabwe were that modern, environmentally friendly technologies are generally not available to or accepted by accessible tanneries and small and medium enterprises in Zimbabwe. The results demonstrate a lack of access to technical assistance and training in the design and manufacture of leather products. There is also a lack of conformity with international environmental production standards, high production costs brought on by high input utilization and little waste recovery, and inadequate workplace health and safety requirements. Regarding the financial institutions’ willingness to support the leather industry, it was confirmed that the institutions visited will only be willing to finance small and medium enterprises if they can meet and avail requirements, such as having a permanent place of business, a business licence or TIN number, a business ID, and a guarantor.

We also conducted an endline evaluation for the Towards sustainable livelihoods for women and girls through poultry production in Zambia project funded by Crossroads International. The key findings were that enabling farmers to access capital inputs was a major success factor of the project –  especially for women who often do not have any access and control over money within the household. It is important to have a robust health management plan to ensure a successful poultry production cycle and reduce the risk of mortality. In addition to empowering women and youth economically, it is important to build their capacity in other areas/skills. All the training topics (poultry production, home and life skills, business and entrepreneurship) were quite essential and relevant, and the farmers appreciated them. Participation in the training was much easier for women who had full support from their husbands. Hence, it is important to ensure that men are fully aware of the project and the benefits so that they can support their wives.

We continued improving the utilization of digital tools to manage our data. We continued with the digital registration of farmers through the Open Data Kit, mapping their fields, collecting their GPS coordinates and issuing them with barcoded Farmer IDs. This allows us to have the basic profile data about the farmer, track what and how they are producing it and their geolocation. We also continued to  promote the utilization of the Training Tracker Tool (TTT) for all the trainings that are conducted for farmers and technical support sessions. The tracker tool allows the field officer to digitally record farmers’ attendance in training or technical support sessions by scanning their barcoded ID with a smartphone. The data is then sent to our servers for cleaning and report generation through Witni: our digital farmer database. We have continued to utilize Witni as our source of means of verification for the Key Performance Indicator (KPI) data we report in our management information system PLAZA. 

We also adopted Google Studio as our Project KPI dashboard platform. We created Dashboard pages for all our programmes and we will be fostering the full utilization of the platform by programme teams in 2023.  

We were part of the Good Practices Learning team and Community of Practice. We participated in exchange meetings at network level and developed content in the form of success stories that contributed to the learning processes. Lessons were shared with global staff through commodity/innovation based webinars. 

In 2022, we conducted internal brown bag sessions to introduce new projects (SEF,  SADC SIPS and AFR100) to all Southern Africa staff. This included presenting the theory of change of the projects, and the project approaches.

In 2022 our communications and marketing efforts sought to synthesize our global strategy to be locally relevant. This saw us speaking at global, regional and local platforms such as the Global Annual Roundtable for Sustainable Biomaterials (RSB) Conference and the World Food Forum conferences amongst others. We also attended the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair which was held in Bulawayo from the 25th to 30th April 2022. This presented an opportunity for networking and learning that the leather sector is a strategic sector for Zimbabwe under the National Development strategy. Additionally, our presentation at a side event, “Financing Zimbabwe Smart Cities & Rural Connect Conference” presented an opportunity for us to showcase our digital innovations work across the region. We also participated in the Africa Climate Week Conference which took place in Gabon from the 29th of August to the 2nd of September 2022. In this workshop we presented on innovative community practices for transformative adaptation and long-term resilience in Africa. Our focus was on promoting indigenous knowledge in agriculture (a community-driven climate change resilience approach). 

We continue to make headway in strengthening our credibility and visibility with the government as a key stakeholder through our RECLAIM Sustainability! programme. This was achieved by hosting a regional tea workshop where Honourable Mark Katsonga-Phiri, MP-Minister of Trade and Industry of Malawi, was facilitating dialogue and advancing inclusive policy formulation processes. Our country-based strategy is using priority commodities in each country for visibility, while underscoring  the farmers’ current circumstances as opportunities for transformation. To this end, we  supported the Tea industry in the commemoration of 16 days of activism against gender-based violence. This occasion was graced by the Honourable Patricia Kaliati, MP –  Minister for Gender.  In Mozambique and Zambia, the cotton sector and Africa foods programme (which focuses on the setting and adoption of safe production standards) have become our vehicle for visibility to national government bodies. In Zimbabwe, we launched the leather project in partnership with SADC Secretariat. The Minister of State for Provincial Affairs and Devolution was present here and engaged with our work at the leather manufacturing level. The leather team also made a presentation at the Industrial Week in the DRC to an audience of value chain actors whose efforts are geared towards industrialization for intra-regional trade.

At a local level, community-based media outlets as well as national broadcasters have been used to increase our visibility. Our social media platforms have served as the pulse of the region, where followers get daily updates of our work across the region. This saw our following go up by over 20% on both Twitter and Facebook. Our best performing post was a mention of Solidardad from Zambia’s head of state President Hakainde Hichelem, after he was thoroughly impressed by our work in green tanning at the Zambia Agriculture and Commercial Show. 
In November, we were top four (out of over 500 applicants) for the ONE Africa Award. The 2022 ONE Africa Award recognized best practices by an African organization addressing social development issues through innovative advocacy in promotion of the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals.

In the year 2022, there was a continued roll out of the Whistleblower Protocol and Code of Conduct policy to ensure awareness and compliance within the region. There was one integrity incident reported which was managed through all the necessary  policies and procedures. At the end of the case all parties were satisfied with the outcome. The person of trust and the integrity advisor provided the necessary support and guidance on cases where there were concerns on the integrity. In addition, the regional Integrity and Inclusivity team led by an Integrity Advisor was constituted to provide leadership and oversight of the implementation of integrity-related efforts, risk prevention, -detection and response. The Solidaridad East and Southern Africa team also collaborated to develop joint inclusivity action plans.

Finance

Income Solidaridad Southern Africa (unaudited figures)

Southern Africa recorded a marginal surplus for the year compared to a significant budget deficit.

The total annual income for 2022 amounted to Euro 4.5 million, which demonstrates a significant increase from the initially budgeted Euro 2.6 million and a 69% increase in income from 2021.

Own funds amounted to Euro 1.2 million – an increase of 142% from 2021 with a positive income variance of Euro 1 million compared to budget. This was due to the securing of new contracts during the year including Industrial Development Corporation, South Africa (SEF) – Euro 467K, SADC SIPS – Euro 69K, Danone – Euro 107K, AFR 100 – 41K, WCDI – Euro 34K, SEED NL – 49K and income generated through Kvuno activities.

Expenditure Solidaridad Southern Africa (unaudited figures)

Direct expenditure for the year amounted to Euro 4.4 million, an increase of Euro 895 thousand compared to budget due to the additional contracts secured and non-operating expenditure Euro 120 thousand resulting in an overall positive result of 3000 Rand.

The full audited annual statements are available below.