ZBiDF’s Agriculture Broker Choongo Chibawe recently took a trip to Zambia’s North Western Province specifically Solwezi to inspect Solar Powered Mini Milling Plants.

The plants are a Presidential Initiative under JCIS to create jobs and entrepreneurship opportunities for the people living around the plants with the excess power that can be accessed. ZBiDF was contracted to broker partnerships that would create spin-off businesses around the Milling Plants and make the area economically productive.

The facility’s role through the Agriculture Broker is to broker the partnership and facilitate its function so that the goal of creating employment and entrepreneurs is realized. Various stakeholders were identified to partner and build capacity for the local people that are living around the Milling Plants to come up with businesses that would support and complement the running of the plants with the excess power.

2,013 (201 per province) Mini Milling plants are to be set up all over the country and hence an Enterprise Cluster Development Partnership (ECDP) to identify and push for spin-off business around the Milling Plants  was born. So far 3 Milling Plants which will act as pilots have been set up and the group of identified partners took a trip to see how the Plants were operating as well as to identify the spin off businesses and talk to the local people.

The trip confirmed that opportunities for spin off businesses around the Plants are available.