Rural Enterprise Support Project Phase II

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The objective of the Second Phase Rural Enterprise Support Project for Uzbekistan is to increase the productivity and financial and environmental sustainability of agriculture and the profitability of agribusiness in the project area. There are four components to the project. The first component is the rural enterprise finance. The component aims to: (i) enhance access to commercial financial services by the newly independent farmers and small or medium size rural enterprises; and (ii) reduce the risks associated with lending to the agriculture sector by providing assistance to the potential recipients on business planning and improving the sector-specific lending skills of the staff of the commercial lenders through training. The second component is the irrigation and drainage. The objective of this component is to improve water management of irrigated areas in these seven districts, through investments in: (a) the rehabilitation of critical inter-farm and on-farm Irrigation and Drainage (I&D) infrastructure; (b) strengthening Water User Associations (WUAs) and the institutional capacity to train and support WUAs to rehabilitate, operate and maintain on-farm I&D systems; and (c) investments in demonstration plots in the districts for applied modern irrigation techniques. The third component is the rural training and advisory services. The component has two main objectives: (i) provide training and advisory services to newly independent farmers in various farm management skills; and (ii) increase availability of technical information and advisory services. Finally, the fourth component is the project management.