September 19, 2011
USAID Awards $50 Million Food Security Contract in Ethiopia
Value Chain Approach to Boost Agricultural Growth, Incomes for Ethiopian Farmers
The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) recently awarded the ACDI/VOCA Support for Food Security Activities (SFSA) team its second major contract: a five-year, nearly $50 million food security program in Ethiopia to increase agricultural productivity and farmers’ incomes.
The Agricultural Growth Program-Value Chain Expansion (AGP-VCE) initiative in Ethiopia will use a value chain approach to increase the competitiveness of select agricultural products; enhance access to finance; and stimulate innovation and private sector investment.
Targeted value chains include: coffee, honey, maize, sesame and wheat.
Agricultural Investments Key to Ethiopia’s Poverty Reduction
The new value chain program is part of USAID’s Feed the Future initiative, which harmonizes regional hunger- and poverty-fighting efforts in countries with chronic food insecurity and insufficient production of staple crops. It also furthers USAID’s commitment under the umbrella Agricultural Growth Program to work with the government of Ethiopia, the World Bank and other donors to strengthen agricultural productivity and markets in the high rainfall regions of Amhara; Oromia; Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People's Region (SNNPR); and Tigray.
Program activities will support the Comprehensive African Agricultural Development Program (CAADP) framework and broader efforts of key African institutions to increase investments in agriculture and promote regional trade and integration.
Agriculture is crucial to Ethiopia’s economy and efforts to reduce poverty. Nearly 90 percent of poor people in Ethiopia rely on agriculture for their livelihoods. Moreover, agriculture accounts for nearly half of national gross domestic product and 90 percent of foreign exchange earnings (World Bank).
Fortunately, the potential for agricultural growth in Ethiopia is significant because of abundant water resources, fertile land areas and available labor.
ACDI/VOCA Food Security Consortium
As lead implementer, ACDI/VOCA will draw on its extensive agricultural value chain and food security experience in Africa—including 15 years in Ethiopia—to integrate market-oriented humanitarian assistance with market-driven staple food production and trade promotion interventions.
The organization is joined by a consortium of specialized partners:
- Booz Allen Hamilton will focus on agricultural policy and enabling environment reform as well as trade promotion.
- Coffee Quality Institute will provide technical and volunteer assistance to support development of the coffee value chain.
- Crown Agents USA will respond to constraints identified along the value chains related to logistics, storage and transport, trade facilitation, and technical assistance in meeting international quality and safety standards.
- Danya International will spearhead the behavior change communications strategy.
- The International Fertilizer Development Center will improve input supply and distribution systems and equip farmers with the incentives and capacity to use these inputs.
- John Mellor Associates will focus on targeted support for reduced barriers to key inputs, such as fertilizers, as well as more consistent policy support to expand regional markets for the selected value chains.
- Kimetrica will provide key inputs to the project’s monitoring, evaluation and learning systems.
The ACDI/VOCA consortium also will partner with private and public African organizations in Ethiopia.
