Burundi
The PARM Process debuted in November 2022 after the Burundian Government, through the Ministry of Environment, Agriculture & Livestock, expressed its interest to receive the technical assistance of PARM to support the country in its efforts to mitigate, transfer and adapt to agricultural risks.
PARM Phases Status (H2)
Country updates
Setting up
On 2 November 2022, the Burundian government through the Ministry of Environment, Agriculture & Livestock (MINEAGRIE) submitted a request to IFAD to mobilize PARM technical assistance to support the country in its strategy to better integrate agricultural risk management into the country’s policies, institutional capacities and investments in sustainable development.
This interest was welcomed by IFAD-PARM and a setting-up mission in Burundi took place from 11 to 15 September to develop an action plan aligning PARM process with the government priorities and to meet with keys national and international stakeholders in the country to explore synergies on agricultural risk management.
Risk Assessment
Following the official launch of PARM activities in the country in 2023, the Platform carried out an agricultural value chain risk assessment study (AVC-RAS) which focused on Maize, Rice and Rabbit, the three value chains selected by the government based on their role in food and nutritional security, in employment and economy, as well as their exposure to agricultural risks and their priority nature within the national agricultural policy and programs implemented by the State and its technical and financial partners.
Design of Programme/Project
As part of the process of developing an investment project in Agricultural Risk Management, the PARM project design mission will take place from 26 August to 06 September 2024 in Burundi to consult key stakeholders in the agricultural sector and collect relevant data to feed the project components.
Learning
Following the setting-up mission, PARM, in close collaboration with MINEAGRIE, has organized on 24 October, the first training cycle of capacity development in Bujumbura. The workshop gathered almost 80 participants from training centers, universities, producers’ organizations, microfinance institutions, buyers, agri-businesses, microinsurance organizations, government bodies and other technical and financial partners who were sensitized on the importance of agricultural risk management (ARM) based on PARM’s holistic approach with a gender perspective.
In the same context, PARM raised awareness of IFAD project teams and partners on the importance of ARM during a workshop organized on 20 October in Bujumbura. This was also an opportunity to identify possible synergies and connections with IFAD-funded projects as part of the future ARM investment project that PARM will develop in support of MINEAGRIE.
Sharing
From 23 to 24 May 2024, PARM, in close collaboration with the MINEAGRIE and the Agriculture and Rural Development Working Group (GSADR – acronym in French), organised a knowledge-sharing and preliminary results workshop of the agricultural risk assessment study. The preliminary results of the study, which focused on the maize, rice and rabbit value chains, were shared and discussed with the Burundian government namely different ministries, parastatal entities, and office of the president, various stakeholders including donors (AFD, AfDB, Embassy of Belgium, Enabel, IFAD…), technical partners (AUXFIN, Cordaid, UNDP, WFP, FAO, Concern Worldwide, CAPAD, …), academia, international agricultural research institutions (ILRI, IRRI, IITA…), private sector companies, farmers organisations, etc.