Farouk Jiwa
Associate/Lecturer

Since joining CARE in 2005, Farouk has been the Director of CARE Enterprise Partners, a social venture capital unit of CARE Canada that seeks lasting solutions to poverty through market-based approaches designed to unleash entrepreneurship in emerging economies. In 2008, Farouk took up the position of Senior Technical Advisor in the Economic Development Unit at CARE USA, and provides strategic and technical support to a number of flagship projects in market engagement and economic development being implemented by CARE in Africa and Asia.

He is also the Co-founder and Director of Honey Care Africa, an innovative and award-winning Fair Trade Social Enterprise that employs 24 full-time staff and supports over 30,000 households across Eastern Africa to earn a supplementary income and increase crop productivity through rural community-based apiculture. Over 40% of Honey Care’s beekeepers in Kenya are women.

Farouk is also the Co-founder of Farm Shop Trust, a not-for-profit social enterprise seeking to establish a commercially-viable microfranchise agro-dealer network model to improve access to seeds and other agricultural inputs and services as well as output market linkages for small-holder rural farmers across Kenya.  

Farouk has previously worked with the Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development in East Africa and served as a Consultant for the World Bank / IFC in Macedonia and Serbia and the Swiss Foundation for Technical Cooperation in Tanzania. He has also served as an international jury member of the Supporting Entrepreneurs for Environment and Development (SEED) Awards funded by UNEP, UNDP and IUCN as well as the Equator Prize and the inaugural Canadian Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award.

He has received a number of honours for his work including being recognized as among the Top 100 Social Entrepreneurs by the World Economic Forum and Schwab Foundation, the Bryden Alumni Award from York University, the World Business Award from the Prince of Wales International Business Leaders Forum & UNDP for his contribution towards achieving the UN Millennium Development Goals, the Ismaili Youth Award for Entrepreneurship from His Highness Prince Amyn Aga Khan, the Equator Initiative Prize at the World Summit on Sustainable Development from the UNDP and the Government of Canada for his contribution to poverty reduction & biodiversity conservation and the International Development Marketplace Innovation Award from the World Bank & Soros Open Societies Institute. Farouk has also been a Sauvé Fellow in Residence at McGill University as well as an Aga Khan Foundation Scholar.

In 2009, Farouk was selected as a Senior Ashoka Fellow as well as a Rural Innovation Fellow by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Ashoka, a life-time recognition for his work in integrating market-driven business processes with community-based development approaches to create secure and sustainable means of improving the livelihoods of rural farmers.

He is an Associate Staff and member of the Coady International Institute’s Markets and Livelihoods Advisory Group at St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia, an established guest lecturer at a number of universities in North America and instructor for the Aga Khan Foundation’s IMM and IDM Programs funded by the Canadian International Development Agency.

Farouk holds a Master’s in Environmental Studies from York University, a Post-Graduate Diploma in Business & Environment from the Schulich Business School, and a BSc. (Honours, First Class) in Environmental Biology from Queen's University, all in Canada.