Nineteen women who built businesses spanning seed production, food processing, agricultural technology and rural enterprise were honored in Kigali this week at the 2026 VALUE4HER Women Agripreneurs of the Year Awards (WAYA).
The winners emerged from more than 1,000 applications submitted across 35 African countries, a field the organizers narrowed down to 19 finalists representing 15 nations.
Rwandan entrepreneur Marina Kamanzi took home the top honor. As founder and managing director of Zambia-based Kagezi Seed Company Limited, she received the 2026 WAYA Grand Prize and USD 40,000 to grow her seed production business further. Kagezi specializes in climate resilient, organically grown seeds for crops that mainstream suppliers often overlook, and it runs a farmer outgrower scheme that brings smallholders into every stage of production. Kamanzi’s work has drawn recognition well beyond Kigali; the World Food Prize Foundation named her among its Top Agri-food Pioneers earlier this year for her contribution to seed systems across the region.
WAYA operates as AGRA’s flagship continental recognition program for female agripreneurs, pairing visibility with prize money designed to help winners scale rather than simply celebrate what they have already built.
What the Category Winners Built
Beyond the grand prize, five category winners were named, each representing a different corner of Africa’s food economy.
Ifeoma Mary Okonkwo of IFGREEN Industries & Investment Ltd in Nigeria won the Women Empowerment Champion category and USD 25,000. Her Lagos-based company converts cassava into gluten free flour, food-grade starch and other industrial derivatives, folding local farmers directly into its supply chain. IFGREEN has grown from a two-person operation into a business supporting 77 direct and indirect jobs, and Okonkwo was named overall winner of Nigeria’s National MSME Awards last year, taking home a prize package worth 220 million naira.
Doreen Jean Nsasiirwe of Westlink Delicacy Api Group Ltd in Uganda won the Resilient & Inspirational Leader category, also worth USD 25,000. Her business runs across apiculture and natural products, generating income for beekeepers while protecting the ecosystems their hives depend on. The category recognizes entrepreneurs building agribusinesses in vulnerable or hard-to-reach communities, and Nsasiirwe’s model ties conservation directly to household income rather than treating the two as separate goals.
Perseverance Muzeya of Alzanael Private Limited in Zimbabwe claimed the Outstanding Value-Adding Enterprise award, also USD 25,000, for work that keeps more of the economic value of raw agricultural produce inside African communities by linking farms directly to processing and consumer markets.
Kenyan entrepreneur Cherotich Rutto won the Female Ag-Tech Innovator category and USD 25,000 for Tawi Fresh, the B2B agritech marketplace she founded after nearly a decade managing digital initiatives at Standard Chartered Bank. Tawi Fresh connects smallholder farmers directly to commercial kitchens and buyers, cutting out layers of middlemen that typically eat into farmer earnings. Rutto has said the platform aims to expose organized farmers to export markets, pointing to Ghana’s cocoa sector as a cautionary example of how little value smallholders can capture when they lack visibility into what their crops are ultimately worth. Tawi Fresh, incubated through Standard Chartered’s SC Ventures Lab, had onboarded more than 1,000 farmers and 250 commercial kitchens within months of its 2023 launch, aiming at a market opportunity the company estimated at roughly Sh200 billion.
Sakalé Traoré of Mali won the Young Female Agripreneur, Rising Star category, also worth USD 25,000, recognizing entrepreneurs under 35 who show strong leadership and innovation early in their careers.
Full Winners List
| Category | Winner | Country/Base | Prize |
|---|---|---|---|
| Grand Prize | Marina Kamanzi, Kagezi Seed Company | Rwanda / Zambia | USD 40,000 |
| Women Empowerment Champion | Ifeoma Mary Okonkwo, IFGREEN Industries | Nigeria | USD 25,000 |
| Resilient & Inspirational Leader | Doreen Jean Nsasiirwe, Westlink Delicacy Api Group | Uganda | USD 25,000 |
| Outstanding Value-Adding Enterprise | Perseverance Muzeya, Alzanael Private Limited | Zimbabwe | USD 25,000 |
| Female Ag-Tech Innovator | Cherotich Rutto, Tawi Fresh | Kenya | USD 25,000 |
| Young Female Agripreneur, Rising Star | Sakalé Traoré | Mali | USD 25,000 |
Runners-Up and Regional Winners
Each category also carried two runner-up prizes. In Women Empowerment Champion, Thokozani Chimasula of Malawi placed first runner-up at USD 10,000, with Kenya’s Irene Etyang taking second runner-up at USD 8,000. Burundi’s Aniella Niyondiko and Ghana’s Portia Asumda placed behind Nsasiirwe in the Resilient & Inspirational Leader category. Nigeria’s Zainab Lawal Gwadabe and Burkina Faso’s Aminata Ouattara followed Muzeya in Outstanding Value-Adding Enterprise. Senegal’s Seynabou Diallo and Kenya’s Millicent Okumu, founder of Agriflex Ltd, placed behind Rutto in Female Ag-Tech Innovator.
Five regional winners, each receiving USD 12,000, rounded out the evening: Amira Affaf Bellil of Algeria for North Africa, Yvette Dickson-Tetteh of Ghana for West Africa, Sabiha Rashid of Tanzania for East Africa, Rachel Ushindi of the Democratic Republic of Congo for Central Africa, and Shirley Marlin Da Graça of Mozambique for Southern Africa.
Kenya’s Strong Showing
Kenya placed entrepreneurs across three categories this year, a reflection of the country’s growing agritech and food processing scene. Alongside Rutto’s win, Irene Etyang and Millicent Okumu of Agriflex Ltd both reached the podium as runners-up, underscoring how deep the country’s bench of women-led agribusinesses has become. Business news platform Khusoko has tracked this shift closely, reporting on how Kenya’s Route to Market Strategy and its push into the African Continental Free Trade Area are reshaping opportunities for exporters, including women entrepreneurs looking to move beyond raw commodities into processed, higher value goods.
Why the Prize Money Matters
The awards trace back to VALUE4HER, AGRA’s continental initiative connecting more than 17,000 women-led agribusinesses across 48 African countries to finance, markets, technology and commercial networks. This year’s competition offered a total prize pool of USD 300,000, more than double what many finalists could access through conventional lending, where women-led agribusinesses across the continent still struggle to secure credit on fair terms.
AGRA President Alice Ruhweza said women operate at every level of Africa’s food systems, from smallholder farms to cooperative leadership to processing plants and distribution networks, making direct investment in women-led agribusiness sound economic policy rather than a symbolic gesture. The 2026 honorees, she said, embody that argument in practice, having already built enterprises that create jobs and strengthen food security well before any prize money changed hands.
For entrepreneurs like Kamanzi, Okonkwo and Rutto, the recognition in Kigali is less an endpoint than a springboard. Each now carries both capital and a continental platform to scale operations that, until now, grew mostly on grit and reinvested earnings.
