Connecting smallholder farmers to private sector partners and markets is key to sustainable impact. In Sierra Leone and Liberia, the Food and Agriculture Resilience Mission – Pillar 3 (FARM P3) builds the capacities of Project Management Units (PMUs) and Ministry of Agriculture officers to engage with agribusinesses and financial institutions, so that these expand their reach to smallholder farmers and ultimately contributing to higher incomes.
Anchored in the Agricultural Value Chain Development Project (AVDP), FARM P3 provides on-the-job support through an embedded private sector engagement (PSE) expert and delivers tailored training sessions for four additional PMUs. This pilot is generating lessons on the most effective approaches to PSE capacity building and directly supports IFAD’s Private Sector Strategy (2025–2030) by developing and testing training packages that can be scaled across the broader portfolio.
From 17 to 19 November, FARM P3 delivered its regional PSE Capacity Building Training for PMUs of LLDP, RFCIP II, STAR-P, and TCEP II, as well as agribusiness officers from Sierra Leone and Liberia. The training offered in-depth insights into why and how to engage the private sector, helping participants understand how incentives, constraints, and value chain dynamics shape private sector behaviour, and providing practical tools to engage agroprocessors in IFAD-supported interventions.
In parallel, the embedded PSE expert has begun facilitating structured engagements with cassava processors and financial service providers to identify concrete partnerships within AVDP and co-investment opportunities.
FARM P3 will gather lessons learned from the training and on-the-job support, refine the training tools based on results, and expand the approach to other PSE-relevant areas—such as engaging input providers and financial institutions—before scaling it across the wider portfolio.
AUTHOR
FARM P3
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AVDP
The IFAD-funded Agricultural Value Chain Development Project (AVDP) supports up to 53,875 rural households through investments in production, mechanization, irrigation, and capacity-building.
FARM P3 globally
Launched by France under the EU Council Presidency and hosted by IFAD, FARM P3 support opportunities in Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Zimbabwe within existing investment projects where private sector involvement and collaboration with development partners adds value in priority value chains.
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