Ireland invests €2.76 million (Tsh 7.32 billion) to improve income opportunities in agriculture
News
18 September 2018
The Embassy announced yesterday a series of grants totalling TSH 7.3 billion which will support programmes to improve the incomes of people living in rural Tanzania. Ireland will partner in these programmes with the World Food Programme (WFP), Agriculture Markets Development Trust (AMDT), and the Agricultural Non-State Actors Forum (ANSAF).
As part of its Strategy for the period 2017-21, the Embassy has identified more sustainable livelihoods for poor women and youth as one of the key objectives. Recognising that 80% of poor people in Tanzania rely on agriculture for their livelihoods, our efforts focus on promoting more inclusive and competitive agricultural markets.
Ireland’s approach is aligned with the Government of Tanzania’s national Five-Year Development Plan (2017–2021) and its Agriculture Sector Development Programme (ASDP II), and emphasises the importance of coordinated public and private investment in the sector to increase production, add value locally and to create employment. Investment by private sector actors is pivotal to the transformation of Tanzania’s agricultural sector as these actors supply farm inputs, provide business services and engage in the trading and processing of agricultural products.
In promoting more inclusive and competitive agricultural markets, Ireland has established three core partnerships:
- The Embassy of Ireland has partnered with the World Food Programme (WFP) since 2016. Initially the partnership was focused on supporting WFP’s crucial work in providing emergency food and nutrition assistance to Burundian and Congolese refugees in North-Western Tanzania. While continuing this support, Ireland has broadened its partnership with WFP to fund a pilot project to develop the sorghum value chain in the Dodoma region. This pilot will directly impact approximately 6,000 farmers and will focus on increasing farm productivity, marketing opportunities and training on post-harvest loss reduction.
This year, Ireland will contribute an additional €1.0M (Tsh 2.6 billion) to WFP bringing its total support since 2016 to €2.5M (Tsh 6.6 billion).
- The Agriculture Markets Development Trust (AMDT) was established by Ireland (in collaboration with Denmark and Sweden) as a Tanzanian-owned platform to promote better coordination between agriculture value chain projects and improve the productivity and market access for micro, small and medium enterprises. Since 2015, the Trust has invested over $12.6 M (Tsh 28.8 billion) across three value chains: sunflower, maize and pulses. Over the coming 12 months, the Trust will invest a further $14.2 M (Tsh 32.5 billion) and will directly impact 190,000 farmers across 15 regions.
This year, Ireland will contribute an additional €1.5M (Tsh 4 billion) to the AMDT bringing its total support since 2015 to €4.1M (Tsh 10.8 billion).
- Ireland has a long-standing partnership with the Agricultural Non-State Actors Forum (ANSAF). This support is in recognition of the central role which organisations such as ANSAF play in representing the voices of farmers’ associations, cooperatives and SMEs. Ensuring that a market-oriented strategy is effective in reducing poverty requires that farmers’ organisations and other non-state actors have the capacity to influence decisions that affect their livelihoods.
This year, Ireland will contribute an additional €260,000 (Tsh 692 million) to ANSAF bringing its total support since 2011 to €1M (Tsh 2.6 billion).
