March 2025
I spent the first half of February in beautiful Somaliland with our amazing team.
I spent the first half of February in beautiful Somaliland with our amazing team. What a pleasure to get to know the country, to understand both its limitations and opportunities and, more importantly, to realise the incredible capability of our team to take on these challenges.
Farah Jirdeh-Fonkenell flew out from London to support me, showing me the country through her eyes and bolstering our meetings with government. We then travelled to Kotu with Farah and Trustee Funsho Allu to visit the Edible Oil plant, where the first sign of sesame oil was evident as we commissioned the plant. With now over 700 people across the Foundation, our Global HR team was also in Ethiopia and Somaliland consolidating talent management under a unified platform.
Pharo Schools staff from Rwanda, Kenya, Ethiopia and Somaliland gathered at our boarding school in Homosha to align on portfolio objectives for our 2035 strategy, while our Ventures and Productivity teams met in Nairobi to chart strategy and operating model. With our annual water strategy already signed off, this sets us up well for the year ahead. We close February wishing Ramadan Kariim to all our Islamic colleagues.
Thomas Mason, CEO, Pharo Foundation
Food security in East Africa
Why do countries with untapped agricultural potential spend millions on imported produce every year, and how does this affect food security? We explore East Africa’s agricultural challenges and how Pharo Ventures is tackling them.
Watch on YouTube →From pupils to green warriors
By Abdibased Mohamed Farah and Francesca Beausang. At Sheikh Secondary School, students tackled climate issues through storytelling, poetry and visual arts in a workshop with local universities and cultural foundations.
Read on LinkedIn →A new dam in the Sahil region
We inaugurated a new dam in the Sahil region of Somaliland, the product of careful research into its location, which we hope to see fill to capacity this year.
See on Instagram →