The Gates Foundation today announced two significant partnerships and $48 million in grants to benefit small cocoa and cashew farmers in sub-Saharan Africa. The two grants – $23 million to the World Cocoa Foundation and $25 million to the German development organization Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) GmbH – were awarded in conjunction with $42 million in cash and in-kind contributions from private industry. The grants are part of the Foundation’s Agricultural Development initiative, which is working with a wide range of partners in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia to strengthen the entire agricultural value chain, and complement financial support and in-kind contributions from the private sector, NGOs and local governments. The five-year cocoa project, for instance, will reach approximately 200,000 smallholder households in Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Liberia and Nigeria and will complement the work of the World Cocoa Foundation, which works in partnership with its industry members to ensure cocoa cultivation is sustainable and delivers greater benefits to the farmers who grow it. Financial and in-kind contributions for the cocoa project come from major branded manufacturers including The Hershey Company, Kraft Foods, Mars, Incorporated and Starbucks Coffee Company.
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