WilmaFund seeks to exploit the positive potential of globalization for African producers. Investments in marketing are critical for overcoming both remoteness and the economic fragility that accompanies poverty in much of Africa. WilmaFund counsels innovative selling strategies that build effective demand for distinctive local goods and services in all industries, supplanting the common but unrealistic commodity model of trade in primary products. WilmaFund builds brand identity and intends to establish marketing companies that co-brand with major international labels, hence building producer equity in international marketing. WilmaFund exploit Africa's comparative advantage in organic products, resources of traditional significance (such as cows, dairy, and meat products), and environmental resources including tropical sunshine that produces biofuel.
In contrast to the "One-Village-One-Product" focus of export-led growth that East Asia has promoted for its villages, WilmaFund believes that African conditions typically call for investment in clusters of businesses that are economically linked. "Model farms" link innovations in animal husbandry, production of fertilizer and biogas, solar and other off-grid power, improved seeds and pest control, reforestation and water conservation. Production of mushrooms, which grow on agro-waste and create valuable food for pigs, can be the center of a cluster of fresh and dried foods for local and export use. A milk cooperative with a strong marketing arm can be the centerpiece of a dairy enterprise producing diverse manufactured foods. Production of biofuels from indigenous plants can be the core of an agro-industrial park that produces power for village use and biodiesel for town-country transport. Traditional perishable foods in excess seasonal supply in some areas, such as bananas, mangos, and tomatoes, can be turned into diverse manufactured products with long shelf life and export potential.
Success in such endeavors typically leads to opportunities for more product diversification as marketing and technical innovations multiply. Such development is always furthered by innovations in technical education and in growing the capacity of a community to advocate for its rights and protect its progress against predatory outsiders. For example, WilmaFund has been involved in planning a small-scale mining company that would serve to protect smallholder mining claims against an influx of aggressive outsiders who want their land. So clusters of community-based enterprises will tend to embrace education, health, and human rights activities.
Because building support in the CDAs is fundamental, investments must focus not only on exports but also consumables, such as solar home power and smokeless fuels for kitchens, which bring quick welfare gains to poor households. Clustering investments is also important in order to take advantage of vertical linkages in the value-added chains, e.g., producing sunflower seeds, manufacturing sunflower oil, and investing in the control of branding and distribution of the oil and its downstream manufactured products.