The Angolan government launched a project on Thursday (25) to develop the eastern region and increase agricultural productivity, with a focus on rice and poultry farming, involving an investment of $210 million.
The Agricultural Value Chain Development Project for Angola’s Eastern Region will last five years and covers the provinces of Cuando, Cubango, Lunda Norte, Lunda Sul, Moxico, and Moxico Leste. It is expected to benefit 240,000 people directly—50% of whom are women and 60% young people—as well as small-scale producers, with special attention given to agro-pastoral communities, people with disabilities, former military personnel, and widows.
Regarding this project, which includes a $190 million loan from the African Development Bank (AfDB) toward the total investment, the bank’s representative in Angola, Pietro Toigo, emphasized that this is the first step toward unlocking the enormous potential of the country’s eastern region.
He noted that the region has “enormous agricultural potential, but it still bears the deep scars of the civil war, evident in depopulation and the deterioration of infrastructure.”
Toigo emphasized that the project aims to increase agricultural productivity, with a focus on the rice and poultry value chains—supported by corn and soybeans—while simultaneously introducing wheat production, strengthening the agricultural production ecosystem, and creating jobs.
“The eastern region project represents a total investment of 210 million dollars, of which the African Development Bank is contributing a loan of 190 million dollars, supplemented by 20 million dollars from the Rome Process financing mechanism, the MATEI Plan, funded by Italy and the United Arab Emirates,” he noted.
According to the AfDB representative, the total investment will also include additional contributions from the Angolan government of approximately $100 million.
Also in the same region, through the Program to Support Production, Export Diversification, and Import Substitution (PRODESI), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the Angolan government will co-finance the strengthening of the rice value chain with $132 million, with technical assistance from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).
“We are particularly pleased to have been able to work with other partners to mobilize large-scale financing, bringing together multiple sources in an innovative partnership,” emphasized Pietro Toigo.
“The eastern region project represents a total investment of 210 million dollars, of which the African Development Bank is providing a loan of 190 million dollars, supplemented by 20 million dollars from the Rome Process financing mechanism, the MATEI Plan, funded by Italy and the United Arab Emirates.”
Pietro Toigo
The representative of the African Development Bank in Angola noted that the project was designed in light of the positive results of the Cabinda Agricultural Value Chain Development Project, which showed a significant improvement in performance “and is already having a major impact on agricultural production” in that Angolan oil-producing province.
“One of the main lessons from Cabinda was that only integrated interventions and support across multiple factors of production can generate a sustainable impact; for this reason, the project in the eastern region will implement a multisectoral and sequential set of interventions, including investment in technologies, agricultural knowledge and techniques, the rehabilitation and equipping of the soil laboratory and agricultural technical schools, and the introduction, promotion, and adoption of proven technologies,” he emphasized.
According to the source, the AfDB’s support for this project in the eastern region is part of its commitment to the investment plan for the Lobito Corridor economic zone—a strategic railway and logistics route in Angola that connects the Port of Lobito, on the country’s southern coast, to Moxico Province, which borders the Democratic Republic of the Congo and extends all the way to Zambia.
“This is an integrated investment program that, over the next six years, could amount to approximately an additional $500 million from our own resources,” he noted.
Source: Lusa
