The African Development Bank and the government of Liberia have launched a secondary wood processing for wealth creation and employment in the country.
The Catalytic Project which was launched on Wednesday is worth \$1.2 million.
The project which will be funded by the governments of Japan, Austria and Liberia,.is aimed at stimulating the growth of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) based on secondary processing of wood products that will facilitate jobs and wealth creation in the country.
The project is well-aligned with the Fund for African Private Sector Assistance’s ( FAPA) core mandate of supporting private-sector development in Africa, which is a key strategic priority of the African Development Bank.
The Fund for African Private Sector Assistance (FAPA) which is a multi-donor trust fund that provides grant funding for technical assistance activities to public and private sector entities domiciled in Africa.
Since its launch in 2006, FAPA has received donor contributions exceeding $85 million and helped finance over 80 technical assistance projects, which has contributed significantly to SME development in Africa.
The project also augurs well, for job creation in Africa and falls in line with the African Development Bank’s Industrialization Strategy for Africa 2016-2025.
“Industrialize Africa” is one of the Bank’s high 5 development priorities. The African Development Bank President, Dr Akinwumi Adesina said Africa needs to create jobs and add value to products for rapid industrialization, stating that no nation achieves industrialization by exporting raw materials.
Speaking at the launching ceremony the Country Bank Manager in Liberia, Dr Orison Amu, reiterated that as a rich natural resource country, Liberia stands a better chance to benefit from these economic insights for industrialization.
Dr. Amu said the opportunities for increasing the contribution of the forestry sector to development in Liberia would be the availability of abundant raw material resources with about 1,000,000 hectares that would be for sustainable harvesting which will lead to establishing modern processing factories.
The AFDB Country Director said such Industrialization cannot be achieved without sustainable investments.
Dr. Amu said since the start of the African Development Bank in 1967, the registering operations with regional member countries have revealed that Liberia has so far enjoyed about 51 of its funded projects worth some $503.34 million or averaging $ 9.94million.
He said none of these projects had links with the development of the forest industry, stating that Liberia needs more investments in the development of this sector.
The African Development Bank’s Forestry consultant, Dr Julius Chupezi Tieguhong said despite the huge wood raw material base in the country, Liberia suffers from a high trade deficit of $5.7 million per year, associated with the importation of processed wood products.
Dr Chupezi Tieguhong said the project will provide evidence-based data on the development of carpentry and furniture (SMEs) that will identify key success factors and lessons learned on secondary wood processing in the country.
The Bank’s Forestry Consultant said the expected outcomes will be to organise producers and traders of secondary processed wood products, improved access to start-up capital, establish links between government (FDA) and private sector.
He said others will be to improve wood processing by SMEs for job creation, poverty reduction, quality wood products and markets at the national level.
TSS/as/APA