81259883-Training of Coaches for the Promotion of Agribusiness — Clusters in Soya, Rice and Shea Value Chains in Benin

The Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH has been supporting the Beninese government since 2011 in the promotion of agricultural value chains for rice, soya and shea butter products in order to reduce poverty and ensure food security. The target groups are family farms and those upstream and downstream of agricultural production in the value chains. The project (October 2020 to December 2023) supports the improvement of the performance of Benin's agriculture, the strengthening of food security and consolidates the successful promotional strategies of the past years, as German Development Cooperation will end its involvement in the agricultural sector in the medium term by 2023. The project is one of 24 ‘priority projects’ of the Beninese Ministry of Agriculture and contributes to the implementation of the Strategic Development Plan for the Agriculture Sector (PSDSA). It is oriented towards its five strategic axes: (i) increasing agricultural productivity; (ii) promoting and structuring agricultural value chains; (iii) promoting the resilience of family farms through adaptation to climate change and food security for vulnerable target groups; (iv) improving the management of the agricultural sector at all levels; and (v) improving access to finance for the various stakeholders. The project objective is: ‘The promotion of selected value chains is sustainably anchored in two development poles’. Development poles are agro-climatic zones with correspondingly assigned characteristic value chains. In addition to intensive support for the partner ministry in implementing a national strategy for agricultural extension (Output 1), all successful methods and knowledge products for value chain promotion are to be prepared for permanent application by extension service providers (Output 2), and two of the methods in particular (‘agribusiness-cluster’ and ‘rice cultivation by Smart Valley’) are to be disseminated together with state partners and other actors in the various value chains (Output 3). Output 4 will anchor important knowledge products in the national vocational training system on a pilot basis.