The African Development Bank (AfDB) has awarded a $84.3 million grant to Ethiopia to help advance the country’s wheat production and increase farmers’ incomes.
Development Diaries reports that the grant has been earmarked for the implementation of Ethiopia’s Climate Resilience Wheat Value Chain Development Project (CREW) to benefit 500,000 small-scale farmers.
The grant comprises $54 million from the African Development Fund, $20 million from the government of the Netherlands, $10 million from agribusiness firm OCP Africa, and $300,000 from the Global Centre on Adaptation.
It is understood that the Ethiopian government will contribute $10 million in counterpart funding for the project.
The CREW project is designed to support the country’s wheat self-sufficiency initiatives.
AfDB’s Deputy Director General for East Africa, Abdul Kamara, said in a statement that the implementation of the CREW project will help cushion the impact of the Russia-Ukraine crisis.
‘The CREW Project will ensure that farmers in Ethiopia can access agricultural inputs to raise local production of wheat such that supply disruptions resulting from the Russia-Ukraine crisis do not worsen the food security situation already made precarious by Covid-19, climate change and rising cost of living’, Kamara said.
‘It also seeks to sustain Ethiopia’s exemplary strides in attaining wheat self-sufficiency and export orientation, a model that other African countries should emulate’.
Ethiopia is the second largest wheat producer in sub-Saharan Africa, after South Africa.
Photo source: AfDB
