Zambia, USA Sign US$491 Million Second Compact to Strengthen Agriculture Sector
Zambia has signed a US$491-Million with the United States Government through the Millenium Challenge Corporate for the Second Millenium Challenge Compact, to strengthen the agriculture and agro-processing sectors.
The Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) is an independent foreign assistance Agency of the United States Government mandated to assist low to middle income countries in reducing poverty through sustainable and inclusive economic growth, while strengthening good governance, economic freedom, and investments in people in eligible countries.
MMC provides assistance through grants and not loans, which support investments in partner countries, and the grant programs must be implementable over a fixed five-year timeframe.
Officiating at the signing ceremony in Lusaka, President Hakainde Hichilema has emphasized the need to accelerate investment in all sectors of the economy including micro, small, medium and large scale.
Mr. Hichilema notes that the Compact is aimed at improving the agriculture sector such as the implementation of the Farmer Input Support Programme (FISP), which has a lot of inefficiencies.
He reveals that there is a lot of cheating under the FISP as people who are not eligible are benefiting from the initiative, including civil servants.
President Hichilema says the E-voucher is already catching up with ineligible beneficiaries who get the fertilizer and sell it in markets.
Meanwhile, Finance Minister Dr. Situmbeko Musokotwane for Zambia to be selected as being eligible to develop the Compact, it had to pass eligibility criteria based on a scorecard of 20 independent and transparent indicators of policy performance.
He says the Compact development process was undertaken through a consultative process with various stakeholders including government institutions, private sector, cooperating partners, civil society, and academia.
Dr. Musokotwane stated that the consultations included identifying factors that were constraining growth in the economy and five constraints were identified out of which three were prioritised by government and they include inadequate agricultural inputs and policies, inadequate roads and transport, and low access to, and reliability of, electrical power.
