German Federal Minister of Agriculture Ilse Aigner during her visit to Africa inaugurated an advanced training center in Ethiopia that teaches farmers about sustainable, site-specific and climate-adapted methods of production.

In an effort to reduce the cost of transport and enhance access to agricultural inputs, larger markets and social services within the East Africa Community, the African Development Bank (AfDB) approved total loans of 232.5 million US dollars for two road projects between Kenya and Tanzania.

The African Development Bank (AfDB) Group approved grants and loans amounting to US 73 million US dollars to finance irrigation and road rehabilitation projects in Malawi.

The grants, amounting to 39.98 million US dollars from the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP) and the African Development Fund (ADF), is approved , on March 13, 2013. It will be used to finance the Smallholder Irrigation and Value Addition Project (SIVAP). A total of 39.6 million US dollars will come from the GAFSP Multi-Donor Trust Fund, while the ADF will provide a grant of 380,000 million US dollars, according to the press statement of the bank.

The project aims is to contribute to food security, increased income levels and poverty reduction and the specific objectives are to increase agricultural production and productivity through intensification of irrigation, crop diversification, value addition and capacity building. SIVAP will benefit 11,400 farm families of which more than 50 per cent are headed by women.
 
A total of about 450,000 people will indirectly benefit from project activities through enhanced crop production, diversification and developing high value-chains.
 
The project will ensure ownership by the beneficiaries through participation in supervision, monitoring, evaluation, afforestation activities, matching grant arrangement for equipment, and training. The emphasis on expanding irrigation capacity will support Government efforts in achieving the objective of enabling farmers to plant at two crops per year.
 
The AfDB also provided a concessional loan of US $33.2 million to finance the rehabilitation of the road between Mzuzu and Nkhata Bay. The Mzuzu-Nkhata Bay road is one of the major trunk roads prioritized in the government’s Road Sector Program, as it is part of the road network that links the northern region of the country to the central and southern regions.
 
The road, once rehabilitated, will support economic growth sectors in the northern region and is expected to benefit an estimated 342,211 people living in the two districts, by improving access to markets, schools, and health centers and other social-economic centers.

In addition to the above, the road is located on the Mtwara Development Corridor and therefore serves international freight traffic from Zambia and Tanzania. It is an important road link, not only for domestic connectivity, but also for regional trade and integration.

BY NEW BUSINESS ETHIOPIA REPORTER

The first regional conference of Bio-resources Innovations Network for Eastern Africa Development (Bio-Innovate) Program opens in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia this morning (February 25, 2013) at the United Nations  Economic Commission for Africa Conference Center