2023-05-20 11:05:42
The Board of Directors of the African Development Bank (AfDB) has given the green light to the budget allocation of $11.70 million to the African Fertilizer Development Financing Mechanism (AFFM).
This budgetary allocation will allow the special fund created by the African Union to carry out its activities properly during the year 2023, explains a press release from the AfDB.
Facilitate smallholder farmers’ access to inputs and technical assistance
In addition to the budget envelope of $4.7 million which had been approved in 2022 and which is carried over to 2023, the AfDB therefore approves $11.70 million, which brings the 2023 budget to $16.40 million. of the African Fertilizer Development Financing Mechanism, the same source said.
This AfDB assistance aims to provide fertilizer to small African farmers
He added that the AFFM will also continue its efforts to mobilize resources from other partners and will seek the disbursement of the balance of the pledge of $10.15 million made by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation ( NORAD) in 2022 ($8.6 million has already been paid).
The Board of Directors has, at the same time, validated the AFFM 2023 program of activities which aims to strengthen the fertilizer sector by focusing on access to financing, supporting the development of viable policy reforms to improve production , trade and use of fertilizers, and facilitating smallholder farmers’ access to inputs and technical assistance.
In 2023, the mechanism plans to continue the implementation of three trade credit guarantee projects, for a total amount of $8.3 million. These are two projects of $2 million each in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, and a $4.3 million project in Zimbabwe.
Other projects involving trade credit guarantees for a total of $9.7 million will be implemented this year in Tanzania, Uganda, Mozambique and Kenya, while three other new projects might be launched in Senegal, Zambia and Ghana, if the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) fulfills its commitment to allocate $15 million to AFFM.
The 2023 projects will be implemented in support of the second pillar of the African Emergency Food Production Facility, which the bank had launched to address the food crisis caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, adds the press release once more.
In addition, AFFM will actively work with African countries and other key stakeholders in the detailed design of the national food and agriculture pacts that the continent’s leaders presented at the “Feed Africa” summit, held in Dakar in January 2023.
Aimed at facilitating smallholder farmers’ access to inputs and extension services through credit guarantee projects, AFFM plans to build their capacity as well as that of input dealers with the objectives of ensuring the proper use of fertilizers, increase agricultural productivity and improve soil conditions.
AFFM will also continue its collaboration with the International Fertilizer Development Center (IFDC) and the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), as part of the initiatives launched in 2021 to improve the production, trade and use fertilizers. It will also carry out an in-depth analysis of the fertilizer policy in at least ten African countries, which will draw up an inventory, identify the shortcomings and lead to an action plan.
It is a question of providing support for the strategic orientations which will make it possible to fill the weaknesses which will have been identified, it is underlined.
Established by the African Union in Abuja in 2006, the African Fertilizer Development Financing Mechanism is a special fund that aims to improve agricultural productivity by providing the financing needed to boost the use of fertilizers in Africa and thus achieve the target of 50 kilograms of nutrients per hectare
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