On the sidelines of the African Development Bank (www.AfDB.org) Annual Meetings in Busan, Korea, the Fund for African Private Sector Assistance (FAPA) (goo.gl/bkP5Bm) donors and the African Fertilizer and Agribusiness Partnership (AFAP) have signed a grant agreement in support of local supply and utilization of fertilizer by smallholder farmers in Africa.

This FAPA grant of US $1 million will help increase affordability, accessibility and incentives for fertilizer use among smallholder farmers in Africa and expand the supply and distribution of fertilizer by leveraging investments. It is also intended to create over 1,000 jobs for women and youth. AFAP, the grantee, will match the FAPA grant.

The agreement was signed Wednesday by Jennifer Blanke, the African Development Bank’s Vice-President for Agriculture, Human and Social Development, and Jason Scarpone, CEO of the African Fertilizer and Agribusiness Partnership.

“This project is very much in line with the Feed Africa strategy of the African Development Bank.  It will promote  greater local supply of fertilizer to farmers thereby increasing productivity, which is central to the transformation of value chains,” Blanke said.

This initiative complements the Bank’s strategy for transforming agriculture value chains in Regional Member Countries and strengthening private enterprises. It also helps improve access to finance for blending companies and joint ventures in the agriculture sector. It will enhance distribution through agriculture input systems with agro-dealer networks in the targeted countries: Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria, Mozambique and Tanzania.

“Agriculture is one of the five priority areas of the Bank.  In Sub-Saharan Africa, 60% of the population lives in rural areas, while the proportion of agriculture in GDP is less than 20%,” said Soichiro Imaeda, Parliamentary Vice Minister for Finance in Japan, one of donors to FAPA. 

“Improving agricultural productivity is an urgent issue in achieving sustainable economic growth in Africa. We hope that this project will be effectively utilized and that farmers’ access to fertilizer will expand and agricultural productivity will increase in the five target African countries including Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Mozambique, Nigeria and Tanzania.”

“Today’s grant agreement is not just about improving the productivity of smallholder farmers in Africa; it also encourages  local supply and utilization of fertilizer in Africa. We’ll continue, through FAPA, to support agriculture finance projects in Africa,” Olivier Eweck, Director of the Syndication, Co-financing and Technical Solutions Department at the Bank, and Chair of the FAPA Technical Committee, said Wednesday.