AYV News, July 4, 2024
The Board of Directors of the African Development Fund
The Board of Directors of the African Development Fund, the concessional window of the African Development Bank Group, has approved a $19.95 million grant for a new initiative aimed at providing livelihoods for women and youth in Sierra Leone.
The Project, titled: “Job Creation for Youth and Women in Climate Smart Agriculture Value Chains and Waste Management,” focuses on sectors where women and youth are particularly active, such as cassava farming and fisheries.
The Grant is part of the Transition Support Facility’s Pillar 1, which aims to address the root causes of fragility and insecurity in Sierra Leone. Additionally, the Global Center on Adaptation will contribute $159,600 for technical assistance to develop adaptation strategies, including waste management policies.
Halima Hashi, the Bank Group’s Country Manager in Sierra Leone, highlighted that 70% of the project’s beneficiaries will be women, promoting gender equality and economic empowerment. The Project aims to enhance entrepreneurial skills in climate-smart agriculture and waste management value chains, improve access to funding for micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs), and expand market access for youth and women-led MSMEs. It will also focus on building institutional capacity to improve the business environment and service delivery for entrepreneurs.
Key targets of the project include: Improving funding access for 700 MSMEs – Strengthening entrepreneurial and digital skills for 2,500 individuals in the cassava and fisheries value chains, 70% of whom will be women; Training 1,000 individuals in waste management value chains, with 250 of them being women; Facilitating business linkages between 700 MSMEs and large businesses; and Creating a digital marketplace benefiting 5,000 smallholder farmers and 4,850 value chain MSMEs.
The Project aims to create 9,200 jobs, strengthen climate change adaptation capacity for 3,500 youth and women, and increase MSME revenues by at least 10%.
This initiative aligns with Sierra Leone’s BIG FIVE Agenda and medium-term National Development Plan (2024-2030), which targets the creation of 500,000 new youth jobs by 2030. It also supports the African Development Bank’s Ten-year Strategy (2024-2033) and its Country Strategy Paper (2020-2024) for Sierra Leone.
