The US Agency for International Development (USAID) awarded ACDI/VOCA an associate award under the Farmer-to-Farmer cooperative agreement to lead the five-year Market Driven Rural Development Activity in Tajikistan. This Activity will accelerate Tajikistan’s agriculture sector growth to enable inclusive access to economic opportunities in rural communities. This will be achieved through four outcomes:
1) Increased investment in the agriculture sector
2) Improved value chain productivity
3) Greater access to profitable markets
4) Climate-smart approaches integrated into the agriculture system
The expected outcome is that Tajikistan’s agriculture sector will become more competitive and resilient, where fragmented farmers, in close and mutually beneficial cooperation with private agribusinesses, will increase the profitability of their farms and have access to services that facilitate formal linkages with regional and international markets. These activities will result in increased investment in the agriculture system, at least $15 million in private sector investment and 500 small-medium enterprises strengthened, which will lead to an estimated 1,200 MT of carbon sequestered through climate-smart practices.
The Market Driven Rural Development Activity will facilitate investment in the development of several clusters of related value chains. The Activity will work with existing value chains to improve their productivity through greater organization and efficiency, resulting in Improved service delivery to smallholder farmers and formalized and strengthened market channels for crops/products with inclusive benefits. To this end, the project will oversee a $6 million market partnership fund designed to leverage and incentivize private sector investment. The program will use volunteer technical assistance to introduce new technologies and means of doing business. These activities will facilitate the adoption of climate-smart approaches by market actors and catalyze $30 million in domestic and export sales.
The activity will not focus on specific geographic areas or administrative borders rather it will cover agricultural production zones/clusters specialized in the production, processing, and selling of certain agricultural products.
Learn more about the Market Driven Rural Development Activity.
Learn more about our work in Tajikistan.
