Government signs three World Bank funded projects totaling US$210 million

The Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, Dr Kwabena Duffuor has signed three World Bank funded projects: Ghana Commercial Agriculture Project (US$100 million), West African Agriculture Productivity Program (US$60 million) and Urban Water project (Additional Financing of US$50 million), totaling US$210 million to support the Government of Ghana’s efforts to sustain economic growth, and maintain its middle income status.

The Commercial Agriculture Project seeks to facilitate access to land, strengthen Ghana’s investment promotion infrastructure for attracting agri-business investors, and promote public private partnerships and small-holder linkages in the Accra Plains the SADA Zone.

The West African Agricultural Productivity Program (WAAPP) is a regional project designed to to scale-up the generation, dissemination and adoption of improved technologies in Ghana’s priority agricultural commodity areas aligned with the sub-regions top agricultural commodity priorities.

In order to reach this objective, the Project will strengthen regional cooperation in generation of technology, and scale-up dissemination and training programs focused on regional and national priority commodities.

Whiles the additional financing of US$50 million to Urban Water Project, is to support the ongoing Urban Water Project, being financed by the Bank with a US$103 million grant.

It will allow the completion of the original project activities that have suffered from unanticipated cost overruns and financing gap (US$42 million) and implement additional activities that would scale up the project’s impact (US$8 million).