EAST AFRICA – SNV Netherlands Development Organisation, a non-profit international development organisation is implementing a five year Climate Resilient Agribusiness for Tomorrow (Craft) project in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda worth 2 million Euros (US$2.1m).
The project funded by Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs is undertaken in partnership with Wageningen University and Research (WUR), CGIAR’s Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), Agriterra, and Rabo Partnerships.
It is specifically targeting Agribusiness companies and farmers working in the sunflower, soybean, sesame, common beans, potato and sorghum value chains in the three countries, reports the Citizen Tanzania.
Through its climate innovation and investment facility (CIIF), the project will support performance-based investments so as to build the resilience of private sector agribusinesses and service providers in the targeted value chains.
Craft project manager for Tanzania, Mr Menno Keizer, said in a statement that the co-investment with the private sector was one of the key strategies identified by the project to achieve sustainable results and increase avail-ability and accessibility of climate-resilient food.
So far, four Tanzanian companies namely, Nondo Investors Company Limited, Rogimwa Agro Company Limited, Jackma Enterprises Ltd and Mwenge Sunflower Oil Mills have signed partnership agreements worth 567,135 Euros (US$612,000).
Craft invests in companies that have demonstrated from their own internally generated funds as well as from third party providers (i.e. financiers and beneficiaries) that their businesses are viable.
The contribution is not an end in itself but rather a means for attracting commercial funding for follow-on investments and scaling. The agri-businesses invest their own funds and then leverage off the Craft grant to attract additional investment from commercial financial institutions.
This not only boosts their credit worthiness and relationship with the financial institutions but ensures businesses continuity beyond the life of the project.
The project will thus work with and through the private sector to promote climate smart agriculture related innovations at farm and value chain level and support public sector partners in creating the institutional environment for wide scale adoption of CSA-practices.
