Building Cassava Industry National Platform: IDH-Grow Africa

      

            

      As part of the efforts of the Sustainable Trade Initiative, (IDH) and Grow Africa to promote cassava industry in Africa, the two organizations have jointly carried out different programmes across Africa to bring all the stakeholders together on the same platform. While IDH is a private organization funded by Swiss, Dutch and Danish governments and gives grant to companies that work with small holder farmers, Grow Africa is an offshoot of the World Economic Forum with the objective of creating wealth in Africa. The pilot intervention on cassava will be in Nigeria, Ghana and Mozambique.

       Developing the national cassava platform is one of the major steps in actualizing the dream of transforming the industrial cassava value chain. The inauguration of the Nigeria national platform which is a follow up to the earlier meeting held by the working group, is taking place today, 22^nd

Medium Scale HQCF Plant

April 2015. The national platform is expected to be set up in the three African countries and targets the medium to large scale cassava processors who are working directly with small scale farmers. The Examples of the member companies on the platform are Niji Lukas Foods, Eagleson & Nico Concepts Cassava Flour, Honeywell Flour Mills, Psaltry International Starch Company, C: AVA 11, FMARD, Jubili Agro-Chemicals, Solidaridad Network, Dadtco Cassava Flour, Business Innovation Facility of UK/DFID, Notore Fertilizer Company, Catholic Relief Group, Federal Institute of Industrial Research Oshodi, (FIIRO), TAC, Allied Atlantic Distilleries Limited, (AADL) and others.

The objectives of the Platform include:

·         Share experiences and learnings in non-competitive areas to address constraints in the relatively new sector.

·         Align private sector interest (secure value chains) and public interest (poverty reduction, economic growth, environmental stewardship).

·          Facilitate partners to conduct advocacy and to take action to address common issues.

The meeting is expected to look at other cross cutting issues which can be collectively addressed for the progress of the industry.