CERATH Development Organization is leading a consortium that includes the Rural Integrated Centre for Community Empowerment, Liberia; Conservation Alliance Liberia; and the Centre for Enterprise Learning, Ghana, to implement the Liberia national component of the EU-funded West Africa Competitiveness Programme (WACOMP). The 4-year intervention which is dubbed, “the Cassava Transformation Project” is being implemented in Liberia’s southeast.
The project seeks to enhance the competitiveness and regional integration of Liberia’s cassava sector through a value chain approach focused on sustained production, value addition, entrepreneurship, and sustainable markets.
The WACOMP aims to support a number of selected value chains at the national and regional levels to promote structural transformation and better access to regional and international markets while taking into account social and environmental concerns. The programme consists of one regional component and sixteen national components. It is funded under the 11th European Union Development Fund (EDF).
As part of the initial activities towards the launch and implementation of the project, the project team has engaged relevant stakeholders including the Ministry of Agriculture, the National Standard Laboratory, the Central Agriculture Research Institute and, the Cooperative Development Agency. Additionally, there has been introductory meetings with County administration, traditional council, chiefs and elders, and cassava value chain actors in five Southeastern counties. The project has also carried out a baseline survey which will help to inform the project implementation.
