IFAD pledges $18.07m for pandemic-hit microenterprises, smallholders
The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), a specialised agency of the United Nations, will provide Bangladesh with an additional loan of $18.07 million to rebuild microenterprises and support smallholders, who have been adversely affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.
The international financial institution and the UN's food and agriculture hub based in Rome is dedicated to eradicating poverty and hunger in rural areas of developing countries.
The additional financing will scale up activities under the ongoing Promoting Agricultural Commercialisation and Enterprises (PACE) project, which is being implemented by the development organisation the Palli Karma-Sahayak Foundation (PKSF).
The funding will complement the government and PKSF's efforts to assist microenterprises and smallholders and recover the severely affected rural economy from Covid-19 induced losses.
This additional loan will finance activities from January 2021 to December 2022 to help restore microenterprises in the farm and non-farm sectors, as well as, scale up and strengthen successful value chains under the PACE project.
"The impact of the pandemic is long-term in nature and requires building back the economy better," Rasha Omar, IFAD's South Asia hub head.
"The additional resource is IFAD's response for rehabilitation of microenterprises and smallholder families who lost their businesses and income due to the Covid-19 induced constraints. The initiative will restore their livelihoods and develop strategies to reduce future risks."
The PACE project—jointly financed by IFAD, the government and PKSF—was launched in 2015 with the aim of improving profitable business opportunities for microentrepreneurs nationwide and create employment for the extreme and moderate poor people.
To date, the PACE project has directly benefitted about 321,000 microentrepreneurs and other actors engaged in value chains in select farm and non-farm sectors through 74 value chain and 25 technology transfer sub-projects.
It providing them with microcredit support, technical assistance, and technological promotion, and facilitating market access, according to a statement.
With the additional loan, the total value of the PACE project now amounts to $129.81 million, with IFAD financing of $58.07million and over the next two years, the project will directly benefit another 168,000 beneficiaries, including 48,000 microentrepreneurs and 120,000 value chain actors.
In order to respond to the growing demand of shifting to e-commerce to promote contactless transaction, with the additional financing PKSF will work with existing e-commerce businesses to facilitate the development of a microenterprise friendly platform covering the entire supply chain.
The platform will eventually be interactive and offer advisory services to farmers, including pandemic management, according to the statement.
The additional resources will be invested in three broad agri-business subsectors: horticulture; fisheries and aquaculture; and poultry and livestock including processed products, and cover 40 districts in Barishal, Chattogram, Dhaka, Khulna, Rajshahi, Rangpur, and Sylhet divisions.
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