Around the world, people have adapted to ongoing global crises, and we at the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP) are no exception. Yet GAFSP’s mandate today is more relevant than ever. Indeed, demand for GAFSP funding reached new highs of over $1 billion in our last Call for Proposals – ten times what GAFSP was able to fund. The needs of smallholder farmers living in the poorest countries and most vulnerable settings are urgent. With our partners, GAFSP must rise to both this demand and challenge as 2022 unfolds.
Over the past year, we supported our growing portfolio of more than 100 public and private sector projects. GAFSP allocated $121 million in grant funding to countries through the Sixth Call for Proposals. And, for the first time in the Program’s history, we are also providing $30 million directly to producer organizations. We continue to put farmers first, and look forward to working with you this year.
Accomplishments in 2021
Supporting COVID-19 response efforts
We launched the Sixth Call for Proposals to help strengthen sustainable, inclusive, and resilient agriculture and food systems in the context of COVID-19 and a changing climate.
We successfully allocated over $150 million in new grants across 19 low-income countries: $121 million to eight country-led projects and, for the first time, an additional $30 million for 12 producer organizations-led projects. Read more about these projects here.
We also helped our private sector clients weather the impacts of the pandemic through a combination of restructuring, working capital, and short-term funding. We also convened private sector partners to learn more about how to better partner with women farmers, build traceable smallholder supply chains, and learn how COVID-19 is impacting the cocoa and chocolate sector.
Learn more about the Sixth Call
Supporting our current portfolio
- Between July 2020 and June 2021, we increased the total number of farmers reached by nearly 1 million, to a total of 16 million people — a third of whom are women.
- Nearly 2 million farmers boosted their productivity through increased support for productivity enhancement activities, such as inputs supply and technology transfers.
- We helped increase new technology adaptation on more than 63,500 hectares of land – a 71% increase over the previous year.
- Farmers’ access to markets improved through the construction or rehabilitation of more than 500 km of new roads – a significant increase from the previous year when COVID-19 interrupted construction work.
- More than 140,000 long-term and full-time jobs – half for women – have been generated through public sector investments.
- More than 15,000 jobs have been generated in the private sector.
Sharing and exchanging knowledge
“As a farmers’ organization, we propose simple activities that youth can do, to benefit themselves and their families.”
– Lamine Coulibaly, National Coordination Agency for Farmers’ Organizations (CNOP) in Mali“Building water storage for very small-scale irrigation schemes has increased harvests and productivity.”
– Augusto García, Senior Agriculture Specialist, World Bank
- GAFSP project teams and other relevant stakeholders came together at the virtual GAFSP Knowledge Forum and at a Missing Middle Initiative Workshop to share experiences and lessons learned on monitoring & evaluation, impact evaluation, portfolio performance, and COVID-19 response, with the aim of improving GAFSP projects.
- In the latest G20 declaration on Food Security, Nutrition and Food Systems, presented during the Foreign Affairs and International Development Ministers Meeting in June in Matera, Italy, the Ministers committed to strengthening collective efforts, and GAFSP was highlighted as one of the existing mechanisms and funding channels available to support global efforts.
Looking Ahead…
We look forward to working with you in 2022. Here are some priority themes that we will focus on this year:
Climate resilience: Following the US Administration’s call for action to integrate climate-related considerations into GAFSP operations, GAFSP has committed to raising our ambition on this important agenda. We will work closely with our partners to articulate what this will look like in the months ahead.
Fragile and conflict-affected countries and contexts: We will work to support the implementation of GAFSP projects in 12 fragile and conflict-affected (FCV) countries that were awarded funding during our 2019 Special Call for Proposals. We are offering a combination of both technical and commercial support to strengthen the private sector in these FCV countries.
Direct COVID-19 support to farmers and their communities: We will support the implementation of the 11 public sector and five producer-led projects that were awarded additional funding in the fall of 2020. These projects will help address the challenges farmers face during the COVID-19 crisis and stabilize income and food security in communities.
Together, we can meet the emerging challenges of our time and improve the lives of farming communities living in some of the poorest and most vulnerable countries, as we strive towards the goals of ending poverty and hunger for all.
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