By SOLDIER
BURUKA
The World Bank-funded Productive Partnerships in
Agriculture Project (PPAP) targeting coffee and cocoa sub-sectors is
progressing well.
The agriculture-based development project, aimed at
improving performance and sustainability of value chains in coffee and cocoa-producing
areas, thereby improving smallholder livelihoods, is a major impact project.
Major components are institutional strengthening and
industry coordination, productive partnerships, and market access
infrastructure.
The project is for six years.
Bulk of the funding is from the World Bank and
International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD), with support from the Papua
New Guinea government.
The project is being introduced into the Eastern
Highlands, Chimbu, Jiwaka and Western Highlands provinces for coffee, and East
New Britain and Autonomous Region of Bougainville for cocoa.
It is being implemented by the Coffee Industry Corporation
and the Cocoa Board.
A joint World Bank International Development
Association (IDA) and IFAD mission recently carried out the second
implementation support mission for PPAP and rated the overall implementation of
the project as moderately satisfactory.
The main objectives of the mission were to review
the overall implementation progress of the PPAP and reach agreement with the implementing
agencies on the 2012 work plan.
The review mission met with relevant government
agencies, provincial governments, potential PPAP lead partners, co-partners,
cocoa and coffee farmers and visited all six project provinces.
The mission’s draft findings and recommendations
were discussed in a wrap-up meeting with officials from the Department of
Agriculture and Livestock and National Planning and Monitoring last week.
The draft aide-memoire was discussed and agreed upon
by all parties.
Mission leader and senior agriculture economist, Mona
Sur, said she was happy with the progress made so far and urged the
implementing agencies and other stakeholders to continue their positive efforts.
She said
farmers throughout the country had high expectations for the project to become
successful and to bring benefits to the people.
She also urged the agencies to conduct more
awareness to keep the people informed about the importance of the project.
Sur said the project experienced some difficulties
and delays in establishing the necessary institutional and management arrangements
which impacted on the overall pace of implementation and progress achieved, causing
some frustration.
However, she said the core management team was now
in place and functioning, and significant efforts had been made to promote
awareness of the project and a first call for proposals had been made under
component two.
While the mission recognised that there were clear
opportunities for improvement and strengthening project implementation, Sur
said the mission acknowledged the significant efforts of the project management
to gain momentum in facilitating implementation.
She said there was a high demand for the project
from the coffee and cocoa industries, and particularly the smallholder target
group with high expectations in terms of what the project may deliver.
Sur told
government officials that one of the critical issues was the importance of
providing counterpart funding.
Inadequate counterpart funding would impact on the
overall level of available financing for project activities.
Acting Department of Agriculture and Livestock secretary
Dr Vele Pat Ila’ava expressed his appreciation to the implementing agencies and
project management for making significant progress and assured the World Bank
mission that outstanding issues would be looked into and addressed.
No comments:
Post a Comment