LONDON, (The Southern African Times) – The World Bank on Tuesday said it had approved $250 million in total financing to support the development of the agri-food sector and the creation of thousands of jobs in rural areas of Cote d’Ivoire.
With this financing, the Agri-Food Sector Development Project aims to remove the major obstacles hindering the growth of the agri-food sector and spur the development of more inclusive, resilient and competitive agri-food value chains.
According to a statement from World Bank, the project will promote real opportunities to forge private partnerships among stakeholders in targeted value chains such as cassava, horticulture, and aquaculture and thus boost investments to improve and modernize the sector’s weakest segments.
“The World Bank will use this financing to support efforts by the Ivorian authorities to address these major challenges by scaling up investment in agricultural research, marketing, and agro-industrial transformation in order to build a competitive and inclusive agri-food sector,” said Coralie Gevers, World Bank Country Director for Côte d’Ivoire, Benin, Guinea, and Togo.
Together with the World Bank, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), will play a key role in private sector engagement by improving the business climate and promoting private investment in the agri-food sector in Côte d’Ivoire.
IFC’s involvement will also enable the project to support approximately 600,000 smallholder farmers, half of whom will be women, 150 SMEs, and at least 400 microenterprises involved in the production, marketing, and processing of agri-food products.
