Ghana Tree Crop Diversification Project

active

Prospective

Ghana has, since the 1990s, been among the most politically stable and fastest growing countries on the African continent. The country has experienced rapid demographic growth, its population having expanded by 65 percent (12 million people) or 3.3 percent per year on average since 2000. But economic opportunity has grown even faster, with high prices for cash crops, oil, and gold contributing to an average GDP growth rate of 5.8 percent per year over the same period. As a result, in the space of two decades, Ghana doubled its per capita income and went from over half to less than a quarter of its population living with less than $2.15 a day. This achievement made it the first country in Sub-Saharan Africa to meet the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of halving extreme poverty by 2015. In 2017, Ghana was the second-fastest growing economy in Africa with a growth rate of 8.1 percent, driven by the mining and oil sectors. To further mitigate poverty and inequality and accelerate progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the country has launched ambitious plans to diversify and grow the economy by modernizing agriculture and accelerating industrialization. These are among the objectives of the Medium-Term Development Plan for 2018–2021 and the Government of Ghana’s (GoG’s) “Ghana Beyond Aid” reform agenda. Ghana’s economy is urbanizing, yet agriculture has been, and remains, a pillar of the country’s economic progress accounting for one-fifth of Ghana’s GDP and employ one-fifth of its workforce. The tree crops sector has played a prominent role in driving economic growth and export earnings by both agricultural and national standards. For instance, Ghana is the second largest global producer of cocoa in the world, having generated 14 percent of the global supply in 2020. It is also a minor supplier of half a dozen of other tree crops including cashew nuts (2 percent of global supply in 2020), coconuts, oil palm fruit, natural rubber (each <1 percent but among the top-20), mangos (<1 percent, ranked 36th), and sheanuts (4.5%, ranked 5th). However, agriculture sector is predominantly informal and dominated by smallholder farmers and family farms, relying on traditional farming methods, which makes it a high-risk sector for child labor (ILO and CEIS, 2017). For example, most children involved in cocoa production work as unpaid family labor, which is a direct result of the smallholder production structure of the cocoa sector in Ghana (ILO and CEIS, 2017). Growth in the agriculture sector over the last decade has not been environmentally and socially sustainable. While there has been an increase in number of cocoa growing households as a proportion of all agricultural households, from 55% to 86% between 2008/09 and 2018/19, mirroring an increase in production, there was also a simultaneous increase in the prevalence rate of child labor (11% increase) and hazardous child labor (8% increase) in cocoa production (ILO and CEIS 2017). It is thought that most of the growth in child labor and hazardous child labor has taken place due to increase in production that led to expansion into new less saturated geographic areas and due to the increased use of agro-chemicals in cocoa production practices (NORC, 2020).The proposed project will have 4 components as follows:Component 1: Institutional strengthening and value chain governance (US$ 25 million). This component will build capacity of Tree Crop Development Authority (TCDA) and Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), as well as the capacity to improve the business enabling environment for socially and environmentally sustainable farming and agribusinesses in the selected value chains (cocoa, cashew nuts and coconut). Investments under this component will support the design and implementation of policies and regulations that aim to strengthen effectiveness, social and environmental sustainability of the selected tree crops’ value chains, support research and development (R&D) to underpin climate resilient production, and digitize the value chains for traceability, and mainstream national capacity to monitor and prevent child labor. The component will have 3 subcomponents: (a) Subcomponent 1.1. Institutional capacity, policies, and regulations will finance TCDA to build institutional capacity and improve service delivery vis-a-vis the private sector. This will include carrying out a needs assessment, offering training, developing administrative policies and manuals for internal operations (HR, IT, internal audit, finance, and procurement), personnel support, and creating an agribusiness promotion desk. It also includes strengthening the governance of the cashew council and coconut federation – TCDA’s service interlocutors – to facilitate and promote effective private sector nurseries, input providers and other service delivery. The project will also support TCDA to implement a new 2022 tree crop regulations, and modifications to other existing policies and regulations, including mainstreaming climate change. Both COCOBOD and TCDA will do consultations and analysis to better understand the impacts of specific policies and regulations on farmers, processors, enterprise owners, and other value chain actors. Their findings will inform the design of new policies and regulations, as well as advocacy efforts relating to existing regulations. This subcomponent will also strengthen the institutional capacity of the stakeholders with legal mandate to coordinate action against child labor and respond to child labor cases, namely the Ministry of Employment and Labor Relations (MELR) and the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection (MoGCSP). These ministries will be strengthened in their statutory oversight, coordination, planning, and monitoring role with respect to child labor, particularily to complement COCOBOD and TCDA’s social risk management systems through leveraging ongoing prevention and remediation programs, professionals and services managed and overseen by these ministries. Particular attention will be given to strengthening child labor monitoring as a contribution to the management information systems that are being developed to ensure product traceability; (b) Sub-component 1.2. Demand-driven research will finance COCOBOD and Cocoa Research Institute of Ghana (CRIG) to integrate cutting edge technology into research programs. relating to cocoa. Priority topics will include Cocoa Swollen Shoot Virus Disease (CSSVD), fungal diseases, and cocoa pests, as well as fertilizer-use efficiency, natural cocoa pollination, and the development of shade tree varieties. Among other things, the project will support the creation of a CSSVD lab. The project will also finance TCDA and the Center for Scientific and Industrial Research, Oil Palm Research Institute (CSIR-OPRI) and the CSIR Crop Research Institute (CSIR-CRI), responsible for coconut and cashew research respectively, to develop cutting edge research. The program will focus on developing and disseminating appropriate plant varieties with tolerance that is suitable for different geographical regions, including in highly disease prone areas. The project will also finance, TCDA to set up an in vitro lab for cashew and coconut, and breeding programs that develop these high-yielding, pest- and disease-resistant, and climate-resilient tree crop varieties. The project will also support the dissemination of research and technology on farms, as well as proven approaches like integrated soil fertility management (ISFM), integrated pest and disease management (IPDM)(c) Sub-component 1.3. Value chain digitization for traceability and revenue mobilization. For cashew and coconut, the project will finance the TCDA in implementing an existing blueprint for digitizing the value chains it oversees. For cocoa, the sub-component will support COCOBOD’s “last mile” roll-out of the Cocoa Management System (CMS) in project areas and train staff to monitor system. For both

FY17 - Agriculture, Fishing and Forestry,FY17 - Industry, Trade and Services,FY17 - Information and Communications Technologies

World Bank

Project

Fertilizers, Manufacturing (Industrial), Oil and Gas, Consumer Products, Raw Materials, Rail, Government