The African Development Bank (AfDB) has granted a US$80mn loan to Congo to set up agricultural value chains to benefit more than 350,000 people
“The project will focus on a limited number of value chains, including cassava (flour and other products), poultry (broilers and eggs), maize (animal feed, human and brewery), aquaculture and fish farming (fresh fish and salted fish, smoked),” said Ali Eyeghe, head of the Agriculture, Human and Social Development for Central Africa Division (RDGC2) at the Bank.
The Integrated Agricultural Value Chain Development Project in Congo (PROVIDAC), which will be implemented for six years, must cover the corridors of the major marketing centres of Brazzaville and Pointe Noire as well as the production basins in the Plateaux departments, Pool, Bouenza, Cuvette and Niari.
“Some 355,000 people, 40 per cent of whom are women and 40 per cent of whom are young people in the various links of the targeted agricultural value chains, are concerned by the interventions of PROVIDAC,” added Ali Eyeghe.
In addition to supporting women’s economic empowerment, entrepreneurship and skills development for young people, the project is expected to contribute to the establishment of a suitable agricultural financing mechanism.
In this way, agricultural productivity will be improved over the long term through access to factors of production (improved and resilient inputs, machinery, ploughing, capital, land), soil fertility management and improvement of rural infrastructures, in particular, the opening up of basins.
