Den Internationale Fond for Landbrugsudvikling (IFAD) har besluttet at give et lån på ca. 144,5 millioner danske kroner til Liberia.
Lånet skal bruges til at forbedre indkomsten for småproducenter af kaffe og kakao, og dermed mindske fattigdommen i det vestafrikanske land.
Flere end 15.000 bønder, heraf halvdelen kvinder, forventes at opleve en direkte forbedring som følge af lånet.
10. Januar 2012 (UN): The United Nations rural development arm is to provide a 24,9 million US dollar (ca. 144,5 mio. DKK) loan to Liberia to improve the West African country’s cocoa and coffee production in an effort to alleviate poverty among rural communities recovering from the effects of past conflicts.
The money from the UN International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) will finance a programme dubbed the “tree crop revitalisation support project” in Liberia, where the development of agriculture is a national priority of the Government.
The project aims to increase the incomes of cocoa and coffee producers by raising the quantity of the produce by revitalizing 50 per cent of existing plantations and repairing 315 kilometres of rural road networks to improve access to market centres for more than 280.000 people.
More than 15.000 smallholder cocoa and coffee farmers, half of them women, will benefit directly from the project.
It is also intended to strengthen extension services to smallholder farmer cooperatives by the agriculture ministry.
Læs videre på: http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=40916&Cr=liberia&Cr1=