The GIZ project Competitive Cashew initiative (ComCashew) is part of the GIZ program on the “Broad-scale Promotion of Agricultural Value Chains in Africa”. ComCashew (previously known as African Cashew Initiative (ACi) is funded in its third phase by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). Jointly with private and public actors, ComCashew constitutes a new era of multi-stakeholder partnership aiming to achieve a sustainable poverty reduction in the project countries Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Mozambique and Sierra Leone, by enhancing the competitiveness of African cashew smallholders, processors and other actors in the value chain.
The cashew value chain offers an important potential for employment and wealth creation, climate change mitigation through climate smart agriculture and the economic empowerment of women and youth, especially in vulnerable rural areas. Therefore, the adoption of a value chain approach to promote all the actors along the cashew value chain is key to a sustainable development of the sector. ComCashew provides support in areas ranging from research, to production, processing, marketing, capacity development and policy advice. Ultimately, new opportunities for employment, especially for women, along the value chain have been created, specifically in rural areas, thereby ensuring an increase in and diversification of income.
After having built a basis for the cashew sector in the six African project countries through trainings for farmers and processors and through activities linking them to national and international markets, ComCashew aims now – in its third phase – to consolidate these efforts. It is putting more emphasis on establishing a sustainable relationship between the chain actors, on transferring knowledge and building sustainable institutions, providing trainings, business advice and services. The objective of ComCashew is to increase income of cashew farmers and processing factory workers.
The objective of ComCashew focuses on four key areas:
Better and higher cashew production in all project countries: Since the project’s inception in 2009, more than 512,000 cashew farmers have completed training in Good Agricultural (GAP) and harvest and post-harvest practices – about 19% of these are women (97,280). Applying GAP, harvest and post-harvest practices and better planting materials have resulted in higher yield of 55% average and improved quality. Local processing, a key factor for domestic value addition: Due to ComCashew support, installed cashew processing capacity rose from 50,000 MT in 2008 to 344,550 MT in 2018. Since inception of the project, over 530,000 jobs have been created, about 75% in production and 25% in processing and trade. Especially those jobs in processing have benefited women, as they account for about 80% of the working force. Alone in processing and production the additional income in 2018 amounted to 35 Million EUR. A regional project facilitating knowledge exchange and innovation: through training of trainers (Master Training Program), ComCashew developed local capacities of highly knowledgeable resource persons as trainers in cashew value chain including policy advice and facilitate regional exchange for learning and innovation: 456 master trainers from 16 countries have successfully graduated from the program. ComCashew’s private and public partners have contributed with more than 106 Million EUR (2009-2018) towards the achievements in the cashew sector. For its concept and measurable successes, ComCashew was awarded the Innovation Award of the OECD / DAC "Taking Development Innovation to Scale" in 2016. more than
512,000
trained farmers
97,280
(~19%) trained women
>530,000
full time job equivalents created
75%
25%
55%
average yield increase
19,869,389 €
public partner
86,851,146 €
private partner
18,522,102 €
official development assistance (ODA)
cooperation with
>170
private & public partners
Status:12/2018