African Development Bank provides $100 million grant for Sudan wheat project

October 22, 2024 (PORT SUDAN) – The African Development Bank will grant $100 million to finance the second phase of a wheat production project in Sudan, the finance ministry said on Tuesday, aiming to improve food security as conflict disrupts farming.

The announcement follows a warning from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) on March 20 that Sudan’s grain production had dropped by 46% year-on-year due to the conflict.

Finance Undersecretary Mohamed Bashar Mohamed said the African Development Bank approved the funding for the project’s second phase, to be implemented next year by the UN World Food Programme (WFP).

The WFP implemented the project’s first phase with $76.8 million from the African Development Bank over the past two years under a 2022 agreement, Bashar added.

The African Development Bank said in June that the first phase involved distributing climate-adapted wheat seeds and fertilizers to more than 170,000 smallholder farmers.

The bank further said the project helped produce 645,000 metric tons of wheat this year, meeting 22% of Sudan’s needs.

Agriculture accounts for 80% of employment and 32.7% of GDP in Sudan, which the World Bank estimated at $34.3 billion at the end of 2021.