The Board of Directors of the African Development Fund has approved a $5.6 million grant in additional funding for Mozambique’s Post Cyclone Idai and Kenneth Emergency Recovery and Resilience Program.
This additional funding is under the Bank’s African Emergency Food Production Facility (https://bit.ly/3QfFI3h) aims to build the resilience of Mozambique’s food systems in response to the current global food crisis, worsened by the war in Ukraine. The funds will be drawn from the African Development Fund, the African Development Bank Group’s concessional window.
Like many other African countries, Mozambique depends on Ukraine and Russia for major cereals and grains supplies and the nation has been impacted by global food price hikes caused by the war in Ukraine and the lingering Covid-19 pandemic.
The $5.6 million grant will help provide certified climate-adapted seeds, fertilizers, and extension services, facilitate modern inputs to farmers, and support policy reforms, including strengthening national institutions with laboratory equipment, overseeing input markets and agro-dealers’ associations.
The additional financing targets the production of maize, soya beans, and sesame. The Bank also expects complementary funding of $5 million from the U.S Agency for International Development and $2 million from the Nordic Development Fund.
The project aligns with the National Agriculture Development Program, which seeks to contribute to food security, income and profitability of the agriculture value chain and to foster a competitive and sustainable increase in market-oriented production. It also forms part of the Bank’s Feed Africa initiative, its 2018-2022 Mozambique Country Strategy Paper, and 2016-2025 Jobs for Youth in Africa Strategy.
The Bank Group in mid-2019 approved a $47 million post-cyclone recovery program to help Mozambique restore livelihoods, rebuild its socio-economic infrastructure, and boost agriculture production following a series of devastating cyclones that killed scores of people and displaced thousands in southern Africa. Also hit severely were Malawi and Zimbabwe.
