After more than four decades of humanitarian and development work across the continent, ForAfrika has learnt that aid alone cannot secure Africa’s future. Communities need opportunities to earn, grow and participate meaningfully in sustainable markets. They need economic systems that create value locally and enable that value to remain within communities.

This is where commercial viability begins: when communities no longer participate in markets only as buyers, but increasingly as producers, suppliers, service providers and owners.

In West Nile in 2025, that shift was already taking shape.

Alex Odrijia spent 20 years growing tobacco on his farm in Kubala, Terego District.

“When I was a tobacco farmer, I received money only once a year and it was modest,” he says. “But now, as a horticulture farmer, I receive money regularly when I sell my produce, which enables me to meet my financial obligations.”

In 2025, Odrijia grew watermelons, cabbage and tomatoes across two acres. His half-acre watermelon harvest alone generated UGX 2 million, enabling him to lease additional land and expand production.

He is not going back to tobacco.

Odrijia is one member of the Kubala Horticultural Farmers Group, comprising 30 farmers, 21 of them women, in Terego District, supported by ForAfrika’s Agriculture and Market Support programme. Their February 2025 tomato harvest generated UGX 80 million, their most successful harvest to date. Their produce supplies the Imvepi and Rhino Camp refugee settlements, linking local production to nearby markets.

In Koboko District, the Malikuru Multipurpose Farmers’ Cooperative tells a different version of the same story. Founded in 2010 as an adult literacy group, thecooperative has grown to 540 members across 14 farmer groups. In July 2025, with support from ForAfrika and the World Food Programme, they acquired their first tractor, which has since ploughed 343 acres.

Kepo Simon, 28, trained as the tractor driver. He grew up in deep poverty and now earns a regular income, pays his sisters’ school fees and saves part of every payment.

“I don’t spend all the money I earn,” he says. “I save part of it so I can continue developing myself.”

Across Koboko, Obongi and Terego, these individual stories reflect measurable economic transformation. Smallholder farmers generated UGX 870 million in sales, while market participation increased from 36% to 65%. Collective enterprise also strengthened financial resilience, with UGX 336.7 million mobilised in savings through VSLAs and Savings and Credit Cooperative Organisations (SACCOs). In total, 2,604 jobs were created across local agricultural value chains.

This illustrates what commercial viability looks like in practice. It is the progression from subsistence farming to surplus production, from surplus to market access, and from market access to sustained economic participation and growth.

This is where ForAfrika’s Social Enterprise initiatives serve as the bridge between self-sufficiency and thriving. By strengthening market systems, enabling productive assets and expanding access to finance, communities are better positioned not only to participate in economies, but to shape them.

In West Nile in 2025, that bridge is no longer theoretical. It is being built through functioning markets, productive assets and growing local enterprise, with value increasingly retained within the communities creating it.