The Zambia agriculture sector will benefit from an estimated USD 31.1 million from the World Bank Global Agriculture and Food Security Fund Program (GAFSP) to improve food production the country.
Zambia was selected along with Burkina Faso, Honduras, Kyrgystan, Mali, Nicaragua and Uganda to benefit from a USD 250 milllion program that will be used to develop value chains and build capacity in districts with the highest levels of poverty and food insecurity.
“Successful country proposals demonstrated a high level of need, a supportive policy environment and a comprehensive plan for agricultural development,” said the World Bank in a recently released statement.
According to the statement, successful country proposals were selected from a pool of 20 complete proposals that were submitted to the World Bank last year.
The Global Agriculture and Food Security Fund is a multilateral mechanism that aims to improve incomes as well as food and nutrition security in low-income countries by improving agricultural productivity.
Zambia counts with a large land resource base of 42 million hectares of which only 1.5 million hectares is cultivated every year.
The country relies on abundant water resources for irrigation with 40% of the water in Central and Southern Africa.
