East African Business Week

DAR ES SALAAM, TANZANIA - The Tanzania Government is set to use more than 165.6 million in seven years to implement the Marketing Infrastructure, Value Addition and Rural Finance Support rogramme (MIVRFS).
  The program will benefit more than 15 million people in the country which will be implemented by Tanzania in collaboration with the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), Africa Development Bank (ADB), and Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA).
  "The program will be implemented in a period of seven years from 2011-2018 where it also aims at empowering small and mid-sized entrepreneur rise their capital," said William Lukuvi, the Minister of State for Policy in the Prime Minister's Office.
The programme will be directed to benefit over 250,000 farmers and 16,500 groups of small scale entrepreneurs.
He said the (MIVRFS) programme will be an instrument of structuring markets, giving value to agriculture products and create awareness to agriculturalists, and monitoring of rural funds through Governmental and Non- governmental organizations spread across the country.
The program also aims at increasing financial services to the people by improving NGO's and community banks.
 It will handle provision of loans to the agricultural sector with the help of commercial banks to the tune of $218.7million, the Minister explained.
  Ms.Tonia Kandiero, the Resident Representative of African Development Bank in Tanzania told The East African Business Week in Dar es Salaam that the programme comprises three major components namely: Marketing Infrastructure and Systems Development; Rural Finance and Programme Coordination; plus Management to be financed by the three stakeholders of ADF, IFAD and AGRA.
   She said that out of $165.6 million, AfDB will provide about $62 million to the programme, while IFAD will contribute about $91.0 million, and AGRA will inject some $7.3 million. According to the AfDB, the Marketing Infrastructure and Value Addition activities of the programme will be implemented in 32 districts (out of 129) in 16 regions.