ECOWAS launches $650m regional rice project.
ECOWAS launches $650m regional rice project The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Commission has launched the Resilient Rice Value Chain Development Project (REWARD), a programme estimated at $650 million, The West African region will need $25 billion to meet the 2035 target of 35 million tonnes of rice sufficiency.
The Commission also inaugurated a regional steering committee to oversee […] The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Commission has launched the Resilient Rice Value Chain Development Project (REWARD), a programme estimated at $650 million, The West African region will need $25 billion to meet the 2035 target of 35 million tonnes of rice sufficiency.
REWARD is backed by the African Development Bank (AfDB) and supported technically by AfricaRice.
It aims to strengthen rice production, improve processing and marketing, and make locally produced rice more competitive. Speaking at the launch, the ECOWAS Commission’s Vice President, Anthony Ogunjimi, said the project followed a directive from the region’s leaders. “Our heads of state of ECOWAS gave the ECOWAS Commission a mandate to raise funding to ensure availability and food sufficiency for the subregion,” Ogunjimi, who was represented by the Commission’s Commissioner for Economic Affairs and Agriculture, Mr Dephue Zuo Dephue, said the overall rice investment portfolio is about $25 billion. “From the financing conference we had in Accra, we were able to raise 1.5 billion dollars, which is going to be used for the time being to ensure that we have access to financing for farmers, for business value chains, for production in the subregion,” he said.
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