SBN stands for the Sesame Business Network in Northwest Ethiopia that is driven by local entrepreneurs and stakeholders working in the sesame production and business sector.

Benefit-SBN is part of the BENEFIT Partnership which supports the SBN stakeholders achieve their objectives.

Benefit-SBN was launched in May, 2013. In the first phase, it was called by the name SBN support programme. As of 2016, the SBN support programme is called by the name Benefit -SBN.

Benefit-SBN, is a programme that grafts its activities to stakeholder objectives, priorities and action plans. It is funded by the Netherlands Directorate General of Foreign Affairs (DGIS) and its Embassy in Addis Ababa (EKN).

As of January 2016, the Bilateral Ethiopia-Netherlands Effort for Food, Income and Trade (BENEFIT) portfolio unites the programme with three other programmes, namely, Capacity Building for Scaling Up of Evidence-Based Best Practices in Agricultural Production (CASCAPE), Integrated Seed Sector Development (ISSD Ethiopia) and the Ethiopian-Netherlands Trade for Agricultural Growth (ENTAG).

In the four years period (2016-2019) Benefit-SBN provides different services and facilities that help stakeholders to work together to realize their individual and common economic objectives.

The project organises its work in four complementary ways:

1. Innovation development
2. Capacity development
3. Scaling and
4. Network and policy development

Read more about BENEFIT here