ACDI/VOCA is proud to commemorate 20 years of successful work and collaboration in Ethiopia. Our activities have focused on cooperative development, agribusiness, and value chain strengthening. ACDI/VOCA currently implements three USAID-funded projects in Ethiopia: the Agricultural Growth Program-Agribusiness and Market Development (AGP-AMDe), the Ethiopia Cooperative Development Program (CDP), and Ethiopia Advanced Maize Seed Adoption Program (AMSAP). ACDI/VOCA also administers the USDA-funded Feed Enhancement for Ethiopian Development (FEED) II project, the follow-on to FEED I.
Agricultural Growth Program-Agribusiness and Market Development (AGP-AMDe)
The AGP-AMDe program is central to the Government of Ethiopia (GOE) Agricultural Growth Program, a comprehensive program aligned with national development plans. AGP-AMDe sustainably reduces poverty and hunger in Ethiopia by improving the productivity and competitiveness of key value chains selected for their potential to improve food security and incomes for rural households. AGP-AMDe value chains include coffee, sesame, chickpea, honey, wheat, and maize. The project operates in Amhara; Oromia; Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People’s Region (SNNPR); and Tigray.
AGP-AMDe has accomplished the following:
- Increased the capacity of 51 farmer cooperative unions representing over 2,550 primary cooperatives and 1.9 million members
- Established strategic market linkages among Ethiopian coffee growers and exporters, beekeepers and honey buyers with U.S. buyers and international markets
- Facilitated access to finance among 44 Savings and Credit Cooperative Organizations (SACCOs) to build membership, savings, and loans. The SACCOs report over $2.5 million in savings; $4.5 million in loan disbursements; $1.4 million in funds accessed from external sources; and 3,140 new members (1,523 women). An additional 157 primary SACCOs joined SACCO unions.
- Enabled 2,191 children to save $16,181 through an innovative saving scheme.
- Led a campaign to promote the benefits of gender equity and women’s increased participation in cooperatives – more than 36,000 new female members registered in one year and female representation in some unions increased from 10 percent to 25 percent
- Empowered women through the project’s Women in Agribusiness Leadership Network (WALN) that targets women business leaders in the agribusiness sector
- Reached 3,100 farmers in SNNPR and Amhara through an innovative approach that enables women farmers to display nutritional best practices through film
- Disseminated 45,000 printed materials related to the project’s behavior change communication that reached 1.8 million farmers in the project’s zone
Ethiopia Advanced Maize Seed Adoption Program (AMSAP)
AMSAP is a dealer-network for private-sector seed distribution for improved varieties of maize seed made possible through a public–private partnership with USAID, the Government of Ethiopia, and DuPont Pioneer to support 35,000 smallholders. In the first year of the project, farmer yields increased by 200 percent by using new hybrid seed varieties.
Ethiopia Cooperative Development Program (CDP)
Part of the global Cooperative Development Program II (CDP II), CDP works with cooperative members to improve the productivity and competitiveness of key agricultural sectors to improve farmers’ incomes and ensure greater food security in the region. The USAID-funded program focuses on five unions in the districts of Amhara, Benshangul-Gumuz, Oromia, SNNP, and Tigray, as well as 15 primary cooperatives (three from each region).
Feed Enhancement for Ethiopian Development (FEED) II
The USDA-funded FEED II project is implemented in Oromia, Amhara, SNNP, and Tigray. It increases the incomes of smallholder livestock producers by improving access to and use of consistent, affordable, high-quality animal feed. The FEED II project has assisted 13 agricultural cooperative unions to establish commercial livestock feed manufacturing enterprises and has trained union members and government livestock and cooperative agency representatives on recordkeeping, business plan development, and the distribution and marketing of feed. FEED II trained over 6,000 (24% female) smallholder farmers on the establishment and management of sustainable forage plots. In addition, FEED II has facilitated the establishment of forage plots on communal lands.
Read more about AGP-AMDe.
Read more about CDP.
Read more about FEED II.
Read more about recent ACDI/VOCA-facilitated successes in Ethiopia including the November 2015 launch of a coffee traceability system and President Obama’s July 2015 visit.
Read more about past ACDI/VOCA work in Ethiopia.
