Rome, 24 May 2021 – The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the European Union (EU) will provide EUR26.5 million worth of liquidity and debt relief to rural financial institutions to protect jobs and safeguard livelihoods during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In Ethiopia, the agriculture sector and rural people are the most impacted by the COVID-19. The pandemic has reduced agricultural labor, limited access to inputs and production capital, reduced production and productivity, and obstructed access to markets and financial services. This has led to loss of employment, reduced access to food, and increased domestic responsibilities for women.
Micro small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) and cooperatives who play an important role in creating jobs and sustaining livelihoods in rural areas are also facing the challenges due to the pandemic.
“Today’s new project of €26.5 million to support agriculture financing in time of COVID shows our support to Ethiopia’s economic development and job creation. This EU and IFAD funding will provide new line of credits to agricultural SMEs and their farmers in the production areas of the main agro-industrial parks of the country,” said Dominique Davoux, Green Deal Team Leader, EU Delegation in Ethiopia.
The current economic slowdown requires additional support for the rural financial institutions who are most at risk, to maintain their liquidity. The Government of Ethiopia has put in place mitigation measures to deal with the impacts of the pandemic including support to the entire value chain, the MSMEs and farmers’ cooperatives.
Through the IFAD-supported Rural Financial Intermediation Programme III (RUFIP III), the government’s request to provide liquidity to MSMEs experiencing shortages will be met with assistance to enhance the resilience and sustainability of the rural financial sector. More than 1.5 million clients of these rural financial institutions will benefit.
“The COVID 19 pandemic is affecting the most vulnerable members of the community through loss of jobs and economic opportunities. As the life blood of the rural economy, MSMEs will be able to sustain their business with minimum shocks and retain employees, thanks to this assistance,” said Mawira Chitima, IFAD Representative and Country Director for Ethiopia. “IFAD is happy to cofinance this effort with the EU and the government of Ethiopia, because protecting jobs is vital for resilience and supporting the financial sector is a key strategy”.
The Development Bank of Ethiopia (DBE) will receive a EUR13.8 million IFAD grant and an additional EUR12.7 million EU grant to improve its liquidity and support rural financial institutions (RFIs). The financing will enable RFIs to help their MSME clients retain workers in employment, reduce the interest cost of credit, provide support to farmers facing challenges meeting their contract farming arrangements, absorb the penalty on defaulted loan repayments, and offer liquidity to partly meet the deferment of loan instalments due to DBE from the RFIs.
“This support could be key in maintaining agricultural productivity in time of uncertain national and international food markets because of COVID,” Davoux said. “The EU contribution provides for an interest rate subsidy that will reduce the costs of finance for RUFIP beneficiary enterprises affected by the COVID-19 crisis, thereby increasing their resilience to withstand the crisis and maintain employment”.
Key partners in the project will include the Federal Cooperative Agency, the Regional Cooperative Promotion Bureaus, Association of Ethiopian Microfinance Institutions and the National Bank of Ethiopia.
Since 1980, IFAD has invested US$795.5 million in 20 rural development programmes and projects in Ethiopia worth a total of US$2.1 billion. These have directly benefited around 12 million rural households.
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Contacts:
David Florentin Paqui
IFAD Communications Division
Tel.: +39 06 54592213
Mob: +39 3357516406
E-mail: d.paqui@ifad.org
Linda Odhiambo
Mob: +254 780320073
E-mail: l.odhiambo@ifad.org
Press release No.: IFAD/21/2021
IFAD invests in rural people, empowering them to reduce poverty, increase food security, improve nutrition and strengthen resilience. Since 1978, we have provided US$23.2 billion in grants and low-interest loans to projects that have reached an estimated 518 million people. IFAD is an international financial institution and a United Nations specialized agency based in Rome – the United Nations food and agriculture hub.
Ethiopia is a key partner for the European Union with a long-standing partnership. EU development cooperation portfolio in Ethiopia is one of the largest in Africa and in the world (€715 million for the period 2014-2020) and the country is also one of the major beneficiaries of the EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa (€257.5 million for 2015-2018). The EU is also providing humanitarian assistance to refugees and internally displaced people in the country. EU humanitarian assistance to the country amounted to €381 million for the period 2014-2018. The EU supports Ethiopia in the implementation of its development strategy, notably in the areas of food security and agriculture, health, and governance. In recent years, the EU has increased the focus in areas related to job creation, industrial and agro-industrial parks, export and trade promotion and private sector development.
