The African Development Bank Group and the government of Ethiopia, in partnership with the Netherlands, fertilizer company OCP-Africa, and the Global Center on Adaptation (GCA), have launched an ambitious project to transform Ethiopia from a wheat importer to a self-sufficient producer and exporter.

The total cost of the Climate Resilient Wheat Value Chain Development (CREW) Project is $94 million. The African Development Fund (ADF), the concessional arm of the African Development Bank Group, is providing a grant of $54 million. The Netherlands will contribute a grant of $20 million, while OCP-Africa and the Government of Ethiopia will each provide grants of $10 million. Additionally, the Global Center on Adaptation (GCA) will extend a grant of $300,000 for the project as part of the Africa Adaptation Acceleration Program initiative (AAAP). AAAP is integrating climate risk assessment and digital adaptation solutions into the wheat value chain, supporting capacity building through deployment of digital climate advisory services (DCAS),  and co-designing digital adaptation solutions in a wheat farmer registration system.

The financing will support 500,000 smallholder farmer households in the Ethiopian states of Afar, Amhara, Oromia, and Somali, to increase wheat productivity from three  to four tons per hectare, generating an additional 1.62 million tons of wheat.