IFAD launches project to help farmers improve incomes, food security in Chad

The project was launched at a start-up workshop involving project participants, government officials, development partners, farmers’ organizations and IFAD staff.

A new €81.9 million project will help more than 1 million vulnerable small-scale farmers in Chad improve their incomes and food security and boost an underperforming agricultural sector hampered by recurrent droughts and rain-fed farming practices.

The Strengthening Productivity and Resilience of Agropastoral Family Farms Project (RePER) includes €49.3 million grant and €5.3 million loans from IFAD, as well as co-financing from the Green Climate Fund grant (€17.1 million), the Government of Chad (€7.6 million) and by the beneficiaries themselves (€2.6 million).

The project was launched at a start-up workshop involving project participants, government officials, development partners, farmers' organizations and IFAD staff. Gayang Souaré, Minister of Livestock and Animal Productions of the Republic of Chad, and Valantine Achancho, IFAD Country Director for Chad opened the workshop.

Despite the challenges posed by the decline of economic growth and the impacts of climate change, the Chadian agricultural sector offers significant development opportunities for smallholder farmers.

RePER will raise the performance and resilience of agropastoral family farms by strengthening agricultural water infrastructure; rehabilitating rural feeder roads; intensifying and diversifying family farming production systems; supporting value addition for agropastoral products; improving nutrition; improving adult literacy; supporting farmers' organizations and improving access to financial services.

"The Government expresses its satisfaction with the satisfactory results recorded by the PADER-G completed in 2017 and the ongoing Project to Improve the Resilience of Agricultural Systems (PARSAT)," said Gayang Souaré at the launching ceremony. "It is based on these results that the two parties, Government and IFAD, have engaged in this strategic step toward strengthening agro-silvo-pastoral resilience with the RePER Project."

The new project also supports the Government's National Development Plan towards the modernization of the agriculture sector, the diversification of the country's economy and the improvement of people's quality of life.

It will be implemented in Chad' Sahel region, mainly in the Guéra, Batha, Hadjer Lamis, Chari Baguirmi and Salamat regions. The new project will complement the activities of the ongoing PARSAT in Chad and extend activities to four new administrative areas.

"It is not the development projects that make the development of a country. It is the men and women, the committed beneficiaries who are the actors of their own development," said Valantine Achancho. "Projects are only catalysts, tools for supporting national policies and strategies for the implementation of operational action plans."

Since 1992, IFAD has cofinanced nine rural development programs and projects in Chad at a total cost of $ 244.6 million, with an IFAD investment of $ 176.4 million. These projects have directly benefitted 294,350 rural households.