AGRA

Founded in 2006, AGRA, is an African-led African-based organization that seeks to catalyze Agriculture Transformation in Africa. In Ethiopia AGRA aims to increase productivity and resilience of smallholder farmers through reversing recurrent climate shocks paying particular focus on key strategic crops and government flagship priority commodities. Based on series of stakeholder consultations, document review and gap analysis, AGRA has identified the key challenges of the agricultural sector in Ethiopia which include; (i) poor productive of major crops as result of recurrent drought, soil fertility decline and limited access to critical inputs and technologies; (ii) lack of resilience of smallholder farmers leading to food insecurity, malnutrition and, (iii) Poor enabling environment for effective and efficient functioning of agri-food system and limited execution capacity of institutions to implement sectoral policies and regulations. Hence, the AGRA country strategy goals focus on transforming Ethiopia’s food system to enhance food security and resilience of smallholder farmers under changing climate & other extreme events. To reach this goal, AGRA aims to achieve three strategic objectives. They are increasing the productivity of smallholders, strengthening the resilience of smallholders, and enhancing the capacity of agriculture sector institutions at the national and sub-national level. The focus of AGRA’s new investment in Ethiopia will tilt towards providing catalytic funding of solutions to address the challenges in areas where there are no active partners supporting the interventions identified.