RTCDT and the, International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD)- Program for Rural Irrigation Development (PRIDE) Project are, in 2023 to 2024, to strengthen the operational partnership for the development of irrigation-based root and tuber crops value chains development with more robust, localised and tailor-made activities in each of the 8 Pride project districts and zones in Malawi.
The 2 organizations have a national level advocacy collaboration working agreement but will now scale activities to districts and zones where Pride is mass strengthening irrigation projects that are also expanding RTC production, utilization and processing among rural poor communities.
According to Pride’s Agricultural Value Chains Development Specialist, Babettie Abigail Juwayeyi, Pride and RTCDT have common ground for complementarity, based on their mandates strengthening root and tuber crops production and productivity, value addition and marketing in order to elevate these crops for food security and improving rural livelihoods.
RTCDT will join Pride and its other already existing partners and communities in delivering tailor made activities that will promote irrigation based RTC development programs
Specific areas of collaboration at district and zone collaboration for period April -September 2021 include;
- Technical capacity and implementation support to root and tuber crops development and to coordinate stakeholders for increased investments and continued innovations in RTC value chains.
- RTC policy and advocacy joint advancement
- Formation and support of district/zonal RTC irrigation and commodity platforms.
- Strengthening of district/zonal RTC farmer-commodity platform interactions.
- Conduct market surveys and trade missions to establish product demand and market requirements.
- RTC district/zonal RTC market Information development and dissemination
- RTC documentation, marketing and communication
- RTC Value chain information sharing and exchange for enhancing increased investment for market development of the RTC value chain to address food security, nutrition and industrial products.
- Multi-level RTC capacity building.
The RTCDT will support PRIDE project in leveraging through 3 main intervention areas namely; RTC Product and process upgrading, Functional upgrading and Upgrading of coordination and business models.
To achieve this, according to Juwayeyi, PRIDE will enhance the efficiency of production processes as well as product quality development to comply with buyer requirements; will together with RTCDT further explore partnerships with other value chain actors already performing various functions as part of the upgrading strategy and formalizing and making more effective value RTC addition relationships.