RURAL DEVT WEST HIGH

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The nine year Western Highlands Rural Development Project for Cameroon will consist of: (a) strengthening and equipping a newly created directorate of production services, which will be responsible for extension, pest control, seed production, training, and field demonstration and trials; (b) establishing a training center; (c) improving field storage facilities for inputs, coffee, and food crops by upgrading 25 existing and constructing 10 new rural service centers; (d) establishing a revolving credit fund to finance seasonal inputs and small farm tools and equipment; (e) constructing about 220 water points to provide 18,000 rural families with safer and more convenient water supply; (f) constructing simple water control works to enable about 400 ha of currently uncultivated bottomlands to be put into productive use by some 1,300 rural families; (g) increasing the mechanical coffee grading capacity of UCCAO (Arabica Coffee Growers' Cooperative Union, Western Province) from 7,000 tons to 14,000 tons per year and introducing machines capable of improving coffee quality; (h) establishing a project monitoring unit which will record changes in a limited number of performance indicators as an aid in improving project implementation and monitoring the impact of project actions; and (i) strengthening the planning unit in the ministry of agriculture.