From farm to market: transforming two of Ghana's key agricultural sectors with potential to drive trade and improve sustainability

Ghana’s economy is undiversified and thus vulnerable to internal and external shocks if not addressed with appropriate reform measures. The agricultural sector continues to be essential for reducing poverty and boosting shared prosperity, and cashew and palm oil remain priority value chains for the government of Ghana. Various strategies and policies mention cashew and palm oil as key for economic diversification and with great potential for job creation and agricultural development. 

The Ghana Private Sector Competitiveness Programme II (GPSCP II) is a bilateral initiative from the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) together with the Government of Ghana. GPSCP II aims to achieve inclusive and sustainable growth through enhanced trade and competitiveness in the Ghanaian cashew nut and oil palm value chains. This will be done by improving the enabling environment and facilitating higher private sector productivity and competitiveness in these sectors.

To tackle the various challenges along the two value chains, the project will apply demand-driven and contextualised methods, following the Market System Development (MSD) approach using three implementation modalities:

1. Under the Strategic Cooperation Partnership, the programme will collaborate closely with the Tree Crops Development Authority (TCDA) to support it in achieving its mandate of creating and regulating a conducive environment for the growth and development of the target tree crops in Ghana.
2. Under the Rapid Response Mechanism to support Government of Ghana reform initiatives, GPSCP II will administer a demand-driven grant fund to drive concrete and tangible policy and strategy reform initiatives from ministries, departments and agencies that benefit the market systems of both value chains.
3. With a funding scheme under the Development Partnership with the Private Sector, the programme aims to mobilise innovations by palm oil and cashew value chain actors that address specific core and supporting functions of the market system in order to improve access to finance, the availability of skilled labour and strengthen businesses and associations.