DEEP DIVE INTO THE GEAVET BLUEPRINT
- 7 hours ago
- 5 min read
May 18, 2026
The Geavet Project
Let’s face it: fighting climate change while trying to run a profitable agribusiness is no walk in the park. That is why GEAVET officially stepped onto the scene in December 2023. You are probably wondering, what is GEAVET?? Let’s begin from the start, shall we? Inclusive Greening Excellence in the African Education and Training Ecosystem (GEAVET) is a dynamic initiative bringing together a powerhouse alliance of European and Sub-Saharan African organizations (spanning Italy, Croatia, Greece, Kenya, Nigeria, Uganda, and Mozambique). Their mission? To completely modernize Vocational Education and Training (VET) in sub-Saharan Africa to drive sustainable green growth ad climate-smart agriculture. By launching hands-on "Living Labs" in four African cities, building a multilingual digital campus, and hosting international exchange trips, GEAVET is proving that green farming isn't just good for the planet, it’s fantastic for business.
To ensure its practicality even in the future, the team knew that they could not just guess what the farmers needed, they needed to dig deeper: they needed research, numbers, variables or in short, they needed data. The partnership immediately got to work with massive deep- dive into the current educational landscape, mapping out existing Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) programs and analyzing policy frameworks across both Europe and Sub Saharan Africa. By conducting localized needs analysis, the team pinpointed the gaps in current TVET frameworks, notably a severe lack of modernized Climate-Smart Agriculture curricula and a policy disconnect from actual classroom teaching which limited the employability of farmers with major focus on women farmers and their ability to join the green economy, raw insights one of them being that a "one-size-fits-all" model fails; boosting employability requires highly localized training that blends environmental science with hands-on digital and business skills., regional challenges and brilliant case studies, it enabled the synthesis of a comprehensive handbook packed with the best practices and policy recommendations for example, a dual-method learning approach, combining a multilingual digital e-platform with real-world, community-led "Living Labs" to test sustainable farming methods on the ground.
In GEAVET’s first ever meeting held in Padua, Italy, the main focus was on the administrative backbone of the project, laying out the rules for its overarching management and quality control across its entire 36-month duration. Led by Eduforma, the objectives centered on keeping the initiative strictly on track, ensuring all project goals are completed on time while adhering to the European Union (EU) strict budget limits and high-quality standards. This involved overseeing the daily administrative and financial management, tracking scientific and technical progress, and executing routine evaluations. Ultimately, this framework provided the rigorous quality assurance needed to keep the partnership moving smoothly from month one to month thirty-six.
After the success of the first meeting, GEVET held its second conference in Croatia. The objectives outlined the core operational tasks and direct educational interventions of the GEAVET project. Specifically, they focused on identifying the precise skills needed to improve the employability of female farmers in Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries, alongside gathering proven practices to encourage sustainable entrepreneurship and launch targeted agribusiness programs. To support this learning infrastructure, the project drafted the official requirements to build a dedicated GEAVET e-learning platform. Furthermore, the partnership organized a mobility learning activity in Croatia, designed to foster peer-to-peer knowledge exchange and strengthen the capacity of TVET providers and teaching staff.
With the research foundation locked in, the project shifts from theory to high-energy action. In 2025, GEAVET held its latest conference in Uganda. Led by Uganda Youth Skills Training Organization (UYSTO), the partnership is rolling up its sleeves to design a specialized coaching module for women farmers in Uganda, focusing heavily on field trips and a gender-responsive approach to Climate-Smart Agriculture. To ensure these brilliant training modules reach as many people as possible, the team is collaborating with Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) to launch the official GEAVET multilingual e-Learning platform. But they aren't stopping in the digital space; the initiative is taking things directly to the dirt by launching real-world "Living Labs" across four different African cities to test these sustainable methods on the ground and measure their true economic and environmental impact. To tie it all together, a massive communication strategy, featuring regional Infohubs, awareness days, and a unified project identity will ensure these green agribusiness solutions aren't just a one-time success, but are fully scalable, highly visible, and built to last long after the project's 36-month timeline.
To ensure this initiative truly transforms lives on the ground, ITF took the lead on some of the project's most critical community milestones: delivering quality work, collaborating closely with our partners, and meeting all our reporting deadlines. A key effort was making the GEAVET project’s knowledge more accessible. We translated major materials including reports on climate-smart farming practices, digital skills gaps, and a Handbook of Good Practices into Swahili. This helped ensure our partners and stakeholders across East Africa could fully engage with and apply the project’s learnings. We also helped shape important project resources, contributing to the final handbook on promoting entrepreneurship in agribusiness and reviewing its content to keep it relevant to the latest trends. Building skills was central to our work. Our participation in a peer-learning exchange in Croatia deepened our team’s expertise and strengthened collaboration across the partnership. These insights directly informed our contributions to creating new training modules on Climate-Smart Agriculture for vocational programs in Kenya. All required narrative, financial, and communications reports were completed on time and shared through the project’s platforms, providing clear documentation of our activities and impact. By year’s end, we had successfully delivered all our commitments under the GEAVET project. From translating content and developing training modules to reporting and capacity building, our work helped advance the project’s goals and fostered meaningful collaboration across regions.
Ultimately, GEAVET is more than just an ambitious partnership on paper; it is a living roadmap for the future of Technical and Vocational training (TVET).By modernizing curricular, sharpening regional policies and building powerhouse African EU network, this initiative is reshaping how vocational education is delivered. As the project moves forward into its next exciting phases, such as TVET institutions following a needs and gaps assessment. The program, which covers areas such as feed and feed management, water quality management, drip irrigation, soil testing, climate data, and seasonal forecasting, was presented in Uganda together with the theoretical modules developed in collaboration with European partners. The upcoming activities will include Training of Trainers (ToT) sessions for TVET trainers, followed by Living Labs to pilot the GEAVET modules and collect feedback for improvement. The project will conclude with a final wrap-up meeting in Mozambique. the teamwork between European and African partners proves that when we share knowledge, we reap a harvest of lasting global impact. The seeds have been planted, and the future of green agribusiness looks incredibly bright.
Written by Wilkister Oluoch
Supported by Isaack Wafula
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