MALAWI: Emerge Livelihoods Receives MWK 450 Million To Boost Climate-Focused Startups

By Smile Hamilton, Malawi 

Emerge Livelihoods, Malawi’s impact lab, has secured approximately MWK 450 million from Village Capital to accelerate and invest in climate-focused startups in Malawi.

The funding is part of the Empowering Sustainable Entrepreneurship in Africa (ESEA) program, supported by Norway through Norad.

According to Wangiwe Joanna Kambuzi, Founder and Managing Director at Emerge Livelihoods, this funding will enhance the organization’s capacity, provide training, and offer regrants to climate startups operating in or planning to expand into Malawi.

Building on the success of Phase One, which supported 14 community-led ecosystem builders across five countries, Village Capital will partner with five ecosystem builders to run entrepreneur-focused programs and provide funding to climate-focused startups.

Emerge Livelihoods joins four other ecosystem builders – Catalyst Fund (Kenya), Ennovate Ventures (Tanzania), IdeiaLab (Mozambique), and Reach for Change (Ghana) – to create a regional pipeline of 500 climate-focused startups. Together, they will support 100 startups through workshops, accelerate 30 startups per country, and award USD 25K in grant funding to top-performing startups.

Early-stage startups in Malawi or planning to expand into the country are encouraged to apply for the program before April 30, 2025. Susan Nakami, Regional Lead for Africa at Village Capital, emphasized the organization’s commitment to empowering entrepreneurs and transforming the system to support them.