The World Bank through the International Development Association (IDA) has offered Ghana $200 million in financial support for the Ghana Tree Crop Diversification Project (TCDP) to expand and grow its economy through revolutionising the agriculture sector to speed up productivity, resilience, and industrialisation.
Details of the support package indicate that the funding will directly benefit 12,800 cocoa farmers and 39,975 cashew, coconut, and rubber farmers, and their households.
Besides, the project is expected to result in an additional 20,000 jobs in downstream value addition by mobilizing private capital. Nearly 40 per cent of on-farm beneficiaries will be women.
While Ghana’s tree crops industry plays an enormous role in agriculture and the economy, the sector can contribute more substantially to Ghana’s economy and society than it currently does, including job creation, export revenue generation, and poverty reduction of the country’s poorest people. Cocoa, cashew, coconut, and rubber segments employ 728,000, 100,000, 10,364, and 4,322 farmers respectively.
Among the major challenges hindering the growth of the sector are: low and stagnant yield, weak institutional capacity, poor sector governance, and poor climate resilience due to weak adoption of climate-smart agriculture technologies and practices.
Also, there is little value addition and weak coordination between actors of the tree crops’ value chains, a lack of connectivity between farmers and improved inputs and services providers, and vulnerability to pests and diseases.
In addition, deforestation, child labour, and the persistence of gender inequities in these agricultural subsectors are of concern.
“The World Bank is pleased to support Ghana’s medium-term national development strategy through the Ghana Tree Crop Diversification Project and directly contribute to the Government of Ghana’s priorities for economic and social development in the Coordinated Program of Economic and Social Development Policies, for an inclusive, resilient, and sustainable economy,” World Bank Country Director for Ghana, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, Pierre Laporte stated.
“The project will support private investments in Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in cocoa, cashew, and coconut value chains and cashew and coconut processing units.”
The TCDP will support demand-driven research and enhance on-farm productivity and resilience to improve productivity, profitability, and climate resilience in the cocoa, cashew, coconut, and rubber value chains. The project will support post-harvest management, value addition, and market access.
It will support deploying public resources to crowd-in private sector investments in the sector where possible, accelerating economic transformation and developing critical agricultural value chains.
The project will also strengthen farmer-based organisations as well as the institutional capacity of the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) and Tree Crops Development Authority (TCDA) and improve sector governance for the competitive and sustainable development of tree crops.
It will improve value chain governance through traceability in tree crops and other investments, technical assistance, and other programmatic support to reform the sector.
The project includes a child labour sub-component to identify and mitigate child labour risks in project communities.
“The project will focus on closing gender gaps in the tree crops sector by increasing the ability of women to obtain productive resources and increase incomes through tailored access to inputs, advice, and financial services”, said Ashwini Sebastian, Senior Agric Economist and Task Team Leader for TCDP.
“Beneficiaries will be in 11 districts in 6 regions (Western North, Eastern, Savanna, Bono, Bono East, Eastern).
“Roughly 185 SMEs in cocoa, cashew, and coconut value addition and processing will also be direct beneficiaries through project matching grants, technical assistance support, and access to markets and services. Of these, at least 60 per cent will be female-owned SMEs.”
The TCDA will house a Project Coordination Unit, while COCOBOD will house a Project Implementation Unit.
The project will support the institutional capacity of both entities and monitor the coordination of project activities closely.
Source: Myjoyonline
