Africa > Central Africa > Cameroon > World Bank grants Cameroon US$100 million loan for agriculture projects

Cameroon: World Bank grants Cameroon US$100 million loan for agriculture projects

2014/12/18

The World Bank has granted Cameroon a loan of US$ 100 million (about FCFA 50 billion) to enable the Central African country to finance its project on investment and development of agricultural markets (PIDMA), according to an agreement signed by both parties.

PIDMA is aimed at strengthening competitiveness of Cameroonian products on national and international markets.

According to the Cameroonian Minister of Economy, Emmanuel Nganou Djoumessi, the project, designed in the form of an inclusive model of agro-business, is based on the development of the competitiveness of the price chains of corn, cassava and sorghum and the direct contact between producers, organized in cooperatives, and buyers.

The project, which will last five years, should help Cameroon move from subsistence farming and low competitiveness to a competitive agriculture-oriented processing, commercialization, industrialization and services of derivative products.

In general, it will be executed in the targeted agricultural production areas in the five agro-ecological zones, inclunding the Sudano-Sahelian zone for sorghum and maize, the bimodal forest area for corn and cassava, the monomodal forest area for cassava and corn, the highland area for corn and the high Guinea savannah area for corn.

The Bank's Operations Director in Cameroon, Gregor Binkert, said that PIDMA is expected to benefit over 120,000 small farmers, men and women, grouped in cooperatives, and provide farmers with the necessary technical assistance by mobilizing various partners or providers, inclunding research services that will provide producers with improved seeds and improved agricultural technologies.

PIDMA is a joint initiative of the Government of Cameroon, the International Development Association (IDA) and the International Finance Corporation (IFC).

Related Articles

South Africa plays an active role in the AU
2017/07/17 Absence of Zuma and Ramaphosa raises eyebrows, quoted Liesl Louw-Vaudran, a consultant at the Institute of Security Studies (ISS), who said South Africa was “ceding power to other players on the continent, such as Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame and the current AU chairperson President Alpha Condé of Guinea”.
Africa: How to Adapt to Beat Crippling Droughts
2017/07/17 Right presently, 14 million people across southern Africa face going hungry due to the prolonged drought brought on by the strongest El Niño in 50 years. South Africa will import half of its maize and in Zimbabwe as a lot of as 75 % of crops have been abandoned in the worst-hit areas. With extreme weather, such as failed rains, and drought projected to become additional likely as a result of climate change, some farmers are by presently taking matters into their own hands, and pro-actively diversifying the crops they grow.
Africa: Expanded Engagement for Caterpillar - Boosting Sales & Alleviating Poverty
2017/07/16 A strong signal of growing business engagement with Africa by large U.S. corporations was the announcement last September by Caterpillar CEO Doug Oberhelman of plans to invest over $1 billion in Africa over the next five years. Caterpillar is not a new-comer, having begun doing business on the continent in 1926. At last month's U.S.-Africa Business Summit in Washington, DC, David Picard, Caterpillar's regional manager for Africa and the Middle East, described some of the steps that have been taken since last year's announcement. He as well talked about the challenges and opportunities he sees, inclunding Nigeria, where the company has operated since 1948. He was interviewed by AllAfrica's Noluthando Crockett-Ntonga and Ladi Olorunyomi from Premium Times in Nigeria. The interview has been edited for clarity and length.
WHO Africa Health Forum App Leads the Way
2017/07/16 You can meet the majority interesting people at conferences. If you can make your way through the sea of people to get to them. The initial Africa Health Forum organised by the World Health Organisation African region was no different - hundreds and hundreds of enthusiastic participants filling the Kigali Convention Centre in Rwanda, determined to find their way to universal healthcare (UHC) on the continent. The forum promised to examine WHO AFRO's vision for health and development across the continent, explore concrete ways for partners to contribute to the work of the organization, meet the challenges that young people face, and provide a platform to talk about innovative strategies for the public health challenges that Africa just can't seem to shake.
Africa: 'Market Information Gap Threatens U.S.$400 Billion Intra-Africa Trade'
2017/07/14 Access to data across African economies, which has been hindered by the fragmented nature of the respective markets, is currently threatening a $400 billion intra-Africa trade potential. Africa Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) said the present transactions price at $170 billion remained their due to wide gap in market data, which presently needs to be closed to foster accelerated trade integration. Meanwhile, the size of intra-African trade could be doubled from the current level of about $170 billion per year to almost $400 billion by addressing the issue of availability of market data on the continent.