Addis Ababa – PROSEAD – Promotion of Sustainable Ethiopian Agro- Industrial Development, a multi-stakeholder dialogue involving development partners convened a quarterly review meeting on December 12, 2023 in Addis Ababa.
By fostering dialogue between value chain actors, the initiative aims to contribute to the development of environmentally sound infrastructure and integrated agro-industrial parks (IAIPs) and Rural Transformation Centers to speed up investments and strengthen the capacities of government institutions at federal and regional levels.
A 400 million USD multi-stakeholders initiative is funded by the European Union Delegation (EUD) with additional grants and loans from African Development Bank (AfDB), Korean Exim Bank, Italian Agency for Development Cooperation (AICS), International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and implemented by Ministry of Industry, Ethiopian development Bank, Agricultural Transformation Institute, German Corporation for International Cooperation (GIZ), With the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) serving as development partner coordinator on the initiative and provides technical Assistance to the Ministry of Industry. these development partners gather on a quarterly basis to review implementation progress, address bottlenecks and make recommendations to Government decision makers on additional needed initiatives.
The multi-stakeholder meeting reviewed key progress and performance indicators on IAIP infrastructure, efforts to advance food system and crops value chains, access to finance, labour skills development, food safety infrastructure and capacity building, and IAIP governance and coordination. Additional focus was on business environment aspects that affect project implementation, namely direction of trade and estimated agro-industrial contributions to GDP and exports. The meeting also reviewed information management system (IMS) platform development.
On infrastructure development reported by the AfDB, water supply system and water treatment plants at Bure, Bulbula and Yirgalem IAIPs and Rural Transformation Centers (RTC) are progressing well. However, challenges remain with power supply that has impeded expansion works, particularly in Bure park. Despite challenges, soya bean, honey and avocado processing companies are operating in the parks, and others focused on coffee, honey, cereal, and oil processing are working on preparations. However, it was reported that the overall investment rate in the parks is low and needs further efforts by stakeholders to attract new investments.
Ethiopian Agricultural Transformation Institute (ATI’s) Value Chain Development for IAIPs has achieved successful direct linkages between four Agricultural Commercialization Clusters (ACC) and 408 Farmers Production Clusters (FPC) with agro-processors in the IAIPs. As the report indicated, women and youth representation in FPCs is 14 and 11 percent, respectively.
GIZ’s focus on enhancing skills of youth and women in the catchment areas of IAIPs has reported successful progress in long-term and short-term training as well as positive progress with establishment of four Agro-industry wide training centers in IAIPs. On the decent work agenda, training materials were developed and piloted; and awareness raising campaigns were conducted targeting the project areas. In addition, this component continued to recent graduates through Idea incubation and acceleration in collaboration with selected Universities.
The meeting also discussed activity progress on operationalization and sustainability as well as the coordination and governance framework that aims to harmonize IAIP stakeholders’ interventions.
“In order to achieve the objective of increasing decent employment and incomes for rural Ethiopians,” said Ms. Mercedes Marin Nortes, Programme Officer for European Union Green Deal Team, in her concluding remarks, “we need to maximize our efforts to reach out to the communities around the industrial parks.”