Sierra Agra, based outside of Freetown, Sierra Leone, is the country’s only juice processing company. Sourcing organic mangoes from a network of over 3,500 smallholder farmers. Sierra Agra exports organic juices and concentrates to the global market.

In partnership with Sierra Agra, Woord en Daad and FairMatch Support (FMS), IDH The Sustainable Trade Initiative has launched Juice Worth the Squeeze which will engage 7,000 smallholder mango and coconut farmers by end-2020 through scaling Sierra Agra’s smallholder farmer engagement.

Sierra Agra have recently joined IDH’s Sustainable Juice Covenant (SJC), under which member companies commit to a target of 100% sustainable sourcing by 2030, sustainably sourced defined as meeting the requirements of benchmarked social and environmental compliance standards at the farm and processing levels of the supply chain.

Current members of the SJC include some of Europe’s largest juice traders, processors and bottlers; the volume of juice sourced under the SJC in 2017 represents 40% of total European juice consumption. Sierra Agra will be the first African juice processing company to join the Sustainable Juice Covenant.

Innovest Advisory is providing investment readiness and technical assistance support to Sierra Agra.

Innovest partner Pawame Solar, which provides off-grid solar home systems to refugees and the broader host community in Kenya was featured in this article by the Refugee Investment Network (RIN) published by the Standard Social Innovation Review. Innovest is a member of the RIN Advisory Council.

The Financial Inclusion Forum recently organised a book launch for “Islamic Microfinance: Shariah-compliant and sustainable?” by Ajaz Ahmed Khan and Malcolm Harper. At this event, Innovest Founder, Justin Sykes, engaged in a discussion on the diversity of Islamic Microfinance models and how impact investing has the potential to expand these solutions.