Rome, 28 October 2010 – A US$19.2 million loan from the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) to the Republic of Cameroon will help improve the livelihoods of poor rural people in the Extreme-North, North, North-West and West regions of the country,  the UN rural poverty agency announced today.

The loan agreement for the Commodity Value-Chain Development Support Project was signed on 18 October by Louis Paul Motaze, Minister for Economy, Planning and Land Settlement of the Republic of Cameroon and Kanayo F. Nwanze, President of IFAD.

Cameroon imports large quantities of food, making the country vulnerable to external price shocks. This vulnerability became more apparent in 2008 when international food prices soared causing social unrest in urban areas.

However, the country has a great potential to meet its food demand and to improve the living conditions of its rural population. Over 80 per cent of the poor people in Cameroon live in the rural areas. The Government of Cameroon, recognizing this potential, intends to revive domestic commodity supply to meet increasing food demand. This loan is intended to support the government objectives of augmenting domestic food supply and reducing rural poverty.

The IFAD’s supported project aims to increase the production of rice and onions, to improve their conservation, processing and marketing and to strengthen the technical and organizational capacity of smallholder farmers. By increasing agricultural production, the project will help the country to reduce food imports and or increase exports. The project will also create rural employment, generate income and improve food security and nutrition.

The project will benefit over 31,000 households composed of smallholder farmers with limited access to technologies and to input and output markets, the women who are generally agricultural labourers involved in post-harvest activities, the youth who are dynamic but lack of productive activities and the vulnerable people, particularly food insecure households residing in the Extreme-North, North, North-West and West regions of Cameroon.

With this new project, IFAD will have financed 8 projects and 1 programme in Cameroon for a total investment of US$116.7 million benefiting 568,400 households.

Press release No.: IFAD/69/2010

The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) works with poor rural people to enable them to grow and sell more food, increase their incomes and determine the direction of their own lives. Since 1978, IFAD has invested over US$12 billion in grants and low-interest loans to developing countries, empowering more than 360 million people to break out of poverty. IFAD is an international financial institution and a specialized UN agency based in Rome – the UN’s food and agricultural hub. It is a unique partnership of 165 members from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), other developing countries and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).