2014 Tutu Fellow Ladé Araba is joining African Fertilizer and Agribusiness Partnership (AFAP) as Vice President Financial Services. AFAP is a non-profit social enterprise that collaborates with public and private sector partners to develop and strengthen inputs value-chains, and to deepen and broaden fertilizer markets across Africa. AFAP designs and executes sustainable development projects that support policy and regulatory reforms, capacity building, financial credit provision, and data collection and market intelligence dissemination. By providing innovative and market-oriented business solutions, AFAP promotes the growth of the agricultural inputs and agribusiness value chain sectors.

Prior to her new post at AFAP, Ladé was the Executive Director of The AlphaMundi Foundation (AMF) and previously, the Managing Director for Africa at Convergence Finance and Co-Founder/President of the Visiola Foundation.  She has more than a decade and a half of development finance experience and served as Technical Adviser to the former Minister of Finance of Nigeria, where she headed the Strategic Monitoring Unit. She was also an Adviser in the Power Sector Team at the Nigeria Infrastructure Advisory Facility (NIAF), a Technical Assistance Program funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID) and a Technical Adviser to the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA).

She is also Co-Founder and President of the Visiola Foundation which empowers African girls and young women through education, training, and mentoring in the science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields. The foundation provides scholarships for academically excellent girls and young women to earn degrees in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) at high-quality institutions across Africa. It pairs scholarship recipients with mentors to support them in their academic pursuits and to encourage their leadership potential.

You can read the announcement on LinkedIn.

 Header Image - From AFAP website