USAID West Africa Fertilizer Program General Fact Sheet

West Africa Fertilizer Program Contact: Kofi Debrah Chief of Party Labone Accra, Ghana Email: kdebrah@ifdc.org Tel: +233 302 780 830

USAID West Africa Fertilizer Program The USAID West Africa Fertilizer Program is a five-year project by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The program is designed to increase smallholder farmers’ use of fertilizer in order to increase agricultural productivity and thereby reduce poverty and hunger in West Africa.

Although the program has a regional focus, country-specific interventions will target USAID Feed the Future focus countries, including Ghana, Liberia, Mali and Senegal. The USAID West Africa Fertilizer Program proposes to increase the regional availability of appropriate affordable fertilizers through: increased regional supply and distribution of fertilizers by the private sector; increased use of improved fertilizers; improved efficiency of regional market transactions; and an improved enabling environment for fertilizer policy and regulatory framework development.

The USAID West Africa Fertilizer Program is being implemented by IFDC in collaboration with a sub-grantee, the African Fertilizer and Agribusiness Partnership (AFAP). Additional collaboration in the form of small grants will be developed with local non-governmental organizations, research agencies and private sector partners to ensure full implementation of all proposed activities and sustainable continuation.

The goals of the program include: § § §

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Establishment of a private-public sector West Africa Fertilizer Stakeholder Forum and the possible formation of a private sector-led West Africa Fertilizer Trade Association.

Establishment and monitoring of fertilizer quality standards to decrease incidents of adulterated fertilizer products.

Providing business management and technical training to new fertilizer importers for more accurate forecasting of market demands and better linkages to global fertilizer markets.

Providing business and management training to fertilizer distributors and agro-dealers to improve their understanding of soil and crop fertilizer needs so they are in a better position to inform farmers about types, quantities and timing of fertilizer application.

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Conducting fertilizer subsidy studies in close coordination with USAID and African institutions to determine the impact of subsidies in West Africa.

IFDC will take immediate steps to increase effective demand for fertilizer in targeted value chains with high impact on food security. This work, relying on IFDC’s Competitive Agricultural Systems and Enterprises (CASE) methodology, will be accomplished in collaboration with ongoing programs and will be made more effective by the implementation of regional fertilizer regulations currently under development by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

In all USAID West Africa Fertilizer Program interventions, there is a commitment to gender equity and to mitigating adverse environmental effects.

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