This move comes from the approval by the Africa Development Bank of the African Emergency Food Production Facility (AEFPF) which is an additional Financing under the Rice Value Chain transformation project to the tune of USD 3.5 million.
At the handing over ceremony held at the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) conference hall, Mr. Assam Jallow, permanent secretary at the Ministry of Agriculture, said the African Emergency Food Production Facilitation (AEFPF) is the Africa Development Bank’s newly approved rapid response framework to address the food crisis and disruption of the supply of critical inputs for food production arising from the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
“Having been aware of the existence of this facility, the Government of the Gambia (GOTG) requested for an additional financing under the African Emergency Food Production Facility (AEFPF) to mitigate the effects of the external shocks and enable the Government to meet the country’s food production for 2022 and 2023.”
PS Jallow recalled that this additional financing which was launched last year on the 23rd September, 2022 by the Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Demba Sabally, will no doubt go a long way in increasing food production and input supply to avert food crises and build the resilience food systems in the short to medium term for future shocks.
“The approval of this additional financing follows the joint Meeting of the Ministers of Agriculture and Ministers of Finance of the African Union on an African Emergency Food Production plan in which The Gambia participated.”
AEFPF objective of the project, he added, is to help African countries avert a looming food crisis due to the disruption of food supplies arising from the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war. However, a key component of this sub-project is to scale up climate resilient production and productivity, enhance farmer registration database for Smart input subsidies and to strengthen agriculture policy and project management
“The provision of these tablets is expected to enhance timely, relevant and reliable data collection for planning and decision making within and outside the project activities as well as strengthen the Department of planning services of Ministry of Agriculture.”
He added; “Therefore, on behalf of the government of The Gambia under the dynamic leadership of President Adama Barrow and on my behalf, I would like to handover the tablets to the department of planning services while at same time challenge you to properly maintain them so that they can serve their intended purpose effectively.”
For his part, Sang Mendy, the project Director (RVCTP), expressed delight to be associated with the handing over of such important gadgets to the Department of Planning Services, with support from the African Development window of African Emergency Food Production Facility.
He recalled that The Gambia government requested support from the African Development Bank to lessen the challenges countries face following the Russia/Ukraine conflict, adding that part of it is to purchase fertiliser and subsidise it.
“In doing that and to make sure that the distribution of this fertiliser is going to be digital by registering all the famers who are going to benefit from this fertiliser. It is going to be a smart subsidy which we purchase about 60 tablets to distribute to the department of planning to collect data to register each farmer country wide so this is another milestone for the project.” he added.
