The
Board of Directors of the African Development Fund (ADF) has approved a
loan of UA 67.27 million (USD 93.51 million) to the United Republic of
Tanzania for on-lending to the Tanzania Agricultural Development Bank
(TADB). The funding will contribute to supporting Tanzania’s agriculture
sector and achieving the country’s development goals.
The
TADB is a national development finance institution, the mission of
which is to develop the agriculture sector in Tanzania. The sector
provides employment for about 67% of the population and has a very big
potential for expansion given the abundance of arable land and the
availability of inland water resources. However, the sector needs to be
developed if Tanzania is to achieve sustainable economic development and
poverty reduction.
Specifically,
in order for the country to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals
and its Tanzania Development Vision 2025, the agriculture sector must
sustainably grow at over 10% per annum. Unfortunately, over the past ten
years, the sector has grown at an average of 4.4% per annum and
contributed an average of 29.3% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). These
rates have recently declined to 3.2% per annum and 26% of GDP (Q2 2016),
respectively.
A
major problem facing the country’s agriculture sector is the
unavailability of medium to long-term finance to support, among other
things, agricultural production, processing and marketing. The TADB is
designed to address this through the provision of much-needed funding to
a sector that is key to the country’s development.
Concluding
his remarks following the Board discussions, the AfDB President
Akinwumi Adesina underscored that: “The TADB is expected to play a key
role in facilitating attainment of sustainable food self-sufficiency and
food security in Tanzania and in promoting and supporting the
transformation of agriculture from subsistence to commercial farming in
order to effectively and sustainably contribute to inclusive economic
growth and poverty reduction.”
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