The  African Development Bank (AfDB) has agreed to a participation of the African Fertilizer Financing Facility (AFFM) in a partial trade credit guarantee of USD 4 million taken alongside OCP Africa, subsidiary of the Moroccan group OCP. This project will reduce potential risks along the agricultural value chain and improve access to quality inputs, especially fertilizers, in Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana, the AfDB says on its website.

The project, which covers a three-year period (2020-2023), will help 430,000 smallholder farmers, including 104,000 women, and facilitate their access to quality agricultural inputs at affordable prices as well as training in good agricultural practices, reports MAP. The project will build on OCP Africa's "Agribooster" initiative, which is based on an inclusive approach to facilitate farmers' access to quality inputs, training, credit and trade linkages, to increase yields and incomes while improving livelihoods.

This operation is expected to boost productivity and contribute to a 35% increase in rice and maize yields in Ghana and a 30% increase in rice yields in Côte d'Ivoire. With this in mind, OCP Africa and AFFM will each provide two million dollars in trade credit guarantees.

For OCP Africa's Senior Vice President for West Africa, Lahcen Ennahli, "this partnership with the AfDB will intensify and expand the activities implemented under the Agribooster initiative. We believe that this initiative will serve as a model to further encourage other private sector and development partners to conclude similar risk-sharing agreements, which will have a positive multiplier effect on farmers, especially in the current context of the Covid-19 pandemic, which poses a serious threat to their prosperity as well as to food security, agricultural inputs and know-how".

"The AfDB is pleased to partner with OCP Africa to achieve the objective of increasing agricultural productivity included in the Bank's strategy, 'Feed Africa'," said Martin Fregene, AfDB Director of Agriculture and Agribusiness .