Posted on September, 17, 2018 at 11:22 am
IRELAND has provided 1.0 million Euro (2.6bn/-) to the World Food Programme (WFP) to help it maintain its critical support to refugees in Tanzania and fund a pilot project to develop sorghum value chain in Dodoma.
The Irish Ambassador in Tanzania, Paul Sherlock and WFP Country Representative, Michael Dunford signed the agreement in Dar es Salaam yesterday to bring 2.5 million Euros (6.6bn/-) total Ireland support to WFP operations in Tanzania since 2016.
Ireland Embassy in Tanzania has partnered with WFP since 2016 to support provision of emergency food and nutrition assistance to Burundian and DR Congo refugees in Kigoma Region.
The partnership has been broadened to fund a pilot project to develop sorghum value chain in Dodoma which will directly impact approximately 6,000 small-scale farmers by focusing on increasing farm productivity, marketing opportunities and training on post harvest loss reduction.
WFP supports over 300,000 Burundi and DR Congo refugees and other vulnerable people in Tanzania, including host communities to meet basic food and nutrition requirements.
The UN organisation also supports government efforts to combat malnutrition in all its forms and is distributing specialized nutritious foods to address stunting.
It provides a food basket of cereals, super cereal (fortified blended food), pulses, vegetable oil and salt to each refugee.
It also runs a supplementary feeding programme to provide additional nutrition support to pregnant and lactating women, under five years old children, people with HIV/AIDS and hospital in-patients.
“Ireland has a strong global commitment to reducing hunger and malnutrition,” said Ambassador Sherlock.
“Tanzania has always shown enormous generosity in hosting large number of refugees. It is our hope that our contribution today will help the government, WFP and its partners ensure that the food needs of the most vulnerable refugees living in Tanzania are met.”
Ireland will also contribute additional 1.5 million Euros (4.0bn/-) to the Agriculture Markets Development Trust (AMDT) and additional 260,000 Euros (692m/-) to Agricultural Non-State Actors Forum (ANSAF).
Agriculture Markets Development Trust (AMDT) was established by Ireland in collaboration with Denmark and Sweden as a Tanzanian-owned platform to promote better coordination between agriculture value chain projects and improve productivity and market access to micro, small and medium enterprises.
The contribution to AMDT brings to 4.1 million Euros (10.8bn/-) its total support to the trust since 2015.
Since 2015 AMDT has invested over 12.6 million US dollars (28.8bn/-) across sunflower, maize and pulses value chains.
Over the coming 12 months, the trust will invest a further 14.2million dollars (32.5bn/- ) which will directly impact 190,000 farmers across 15 regions.
Source: Daily News