BACKGROUND

With funding from The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the Government of Liberia (GOL) is currently implementing five projects:

The Rural Community Finance Project (RCFP).  The project includes an IFAD loan of US$ 5.5 million and a grant of US$ 0.5 million and will improve access to rural financial services on a sustainable basis, enabling the development of the rural sector. It incorporates lessons-learnt on financial inclusion from Sierra Leone, where the IFAD-financed RFCIP helped establish a large network of Rural Financial Institutions, including both Financial Services Associations and Community Banks. The project started implementation in the second quarter of 2019 and has a duration of six years.

The Tree Crop Extension Project (TCEP). TCEP includes an IFAD loan of US$13 million, Adaptation for Smallholder Agriculture Programme (ASAP) grant of US$4.5 million and an additional amount of US$9 million for rural roads. The project will work towards developing a viable and sustainable smallholder cocoa sub-sector in Liberia's main producing belt. The TCEP was ratified in 2019, and started implementation in January 2019, and is intervening in at least 8 statutory districts in Nimba County. Its duration is 6 years. The TCEP is adopting a value chain approach to link cocoa farmers, organized at grassroots level in traditional community-based labor groups and Farmers Field Schools (FFS), to markets and services through cooperatives and Private Sector Partners (PSPs).

The Tree Crop Extension Project II (TCEP-II). Financing of US$23.8 million was approved by IFAD's Executive Board in December 2018 and was signed and ratified by the Liberian Government in September 2019. Its duration is 6 years. The TCEP-II financing is prioritized in Lofa County with the possibility to include areas in other counties with comparable socio-economic and agronomic conditions. The TCEP-II is also adopts a value chain approach to link cocoa farmers, organized at grassroots level in traditional community-based labor groups and Farmers Field Schools (FFS), to markets and services through cooperatives and Private Sector Partners (PSPs) building on the achievements and lessons learnt from the IFAD co-financed Smallholder Tree Crops Rehabilitation Support Project (STCRSP).

Smallholders Agriculture Transformation and Agribusiness Revitalization Project-STARP-P(WB & IFAD)
The Smallholder Agriculture Transformation and Agribusiness Revitalization Project (STAR-P) focuses on addressing critical market failures limiting the development of the rice, oil palm, and horticulture value chains. The project achieves its objectives of increasing agricultural productivity and promoting smallholder commercialization, by facilitating private sector investment in selected value chains and by fostering productive links between smallholder farmers and selected agribusiness firms through a business climate lens. Adaptation approaches and mitigation measures are applied for rice and oil palm production to enhance the climate resilience of production and minimize climate risks.

The project development objective for STAR-P is to increase agricultural productivity and commercialization of smallholder farmers for selected value chains in the various counties of Liberia.
The project design is based on three strategic pillars, which are prerequisites for efficient and competitive value chains: (i) Institutional development to address critical capacity and coordination gaps; (ii) enhancement of productivity, quality, and efficiency along the targeted value chains; and (iii) improvements in the enabling environment.
The value chains selected and being supported under the project are based on a sector scan that prioritized agribusiness subsectors on a range of development impact and investor potential criteria, including job and income opportunities. Experts analysis show that the three value chains selected for intervention (rice, oil palm, and horticulture) have the strongest potential for development impact, ease of implementation, and attractiveness for private sector investment.
The project was initially received IDA funds of $25M and later received IFAD funds of $23M (73% loan and 27% grant). Under the World Bank, the project end date is November 30, 2024. The project received additional financing of $28.71M under IFAD which will extend the project up to November 2029.
The project consists of three components: (i) Institutional capacity building and strengthening the enabling environment for farmers, state, and nonstate actors, (ii) enhancing productivity and competitiveness, and (iii) project management, monitoring and evaluation (M&E), citizens engagement, and contingency emergency response.
Initially the scope of the Project covered five counties but extended and includes all 15 counties in Liberia. The direct beneficiaries of the project are 38,000 smallholder farmers, of which at least 30 percent targets women farmers. To benefit from the project services, farmers will be active, resident smallholder farmers in the project locality who are already engaged in producing one of the target crops, and they will be a member of an FBO (or willing to become a member). These farmers would benefit from increased income accruing from productivity increases and improved access to markets for the sale of their products. Production and market access support is provided to producers of rice, palm oil, and horticulture result in productivity gains to all players along these value chains.
The project benefits farmers within all counties in Liberia. Other beneficiaries include aggregators, offtakers, processors, agri-marketing businesses, agribusinesses and business development services enterprises that have good business links to smallholder farmers in the targeted value chains. Indirect beneficiaries include government staff in targeted ministries, agencies, and commissions, and private sector and other nonstate institutions.
The following key performance indicators are used to measure project outcomes: 
(a) Increase in yield per targeted Value Chain, disaggregated by gender (Percentage).  
(b) Volume of annual sales (Metric tons) for the target commodities produced by the beneficiary farmers’ groups, disaggregated by gender. 
(c) Number of direct project beneficiaries (Number), disaggregated by gender (Percentage).
The project is being managed by the Ministry of Agriculture under the Project Implementation Unit.
For additional information, please contact:
Elvis Sirleaf, Communications Lead, PIU, MoA

The Rural Poor Stimulus Facility (RPSF) Project. The Rural Poor Stimulus Facility (RPSF) project is a part of a programmatic intervention combining attributes from TCEP and TCEP-II. RPSF includes an IFAD grant of US$1,086,284 with possibility of additional financing. Its duration is one year. The goal of the RPSF is to improve the livelihood and COVID-19 resilience of rural households in Nimba and Lofa Counties. The overall objective is to improve food crops production and nutritional status of farming households in Nimba and Lofa Counties. The RPSF project will intervene in at least 15 statutory districts in the two counties, where the livelihoods of most smallholders traditionally depend on tree crops (rubber, cocoa, coffee and oil palm) and food crops (rice, cassava and vegetables).

The Building Climate Resilience Project (BCRP). The Building Climate Resilience Project  is ……………………………………………

THE PROGRAM IMPLEMENTATION UNIT (PIU)

The Ministry of Agriculture is the implementing Agency for all IFAD funded projects in Liberia through a dedicated Program Implementation Unit (PIU). A single program implementation unit with the required thematic expertise to manage IFAD projects is deemed to be cost effective, while facilitating cross learning and knowledge management, and building synergies between projects.