Support to Zambia National Farmers' Union, Core Support Programme Phase II

Description What is done in the programme or project and why, what results are pursued, who benefits from the activities and who are involved in the implementation.

Finland has supported Zambia National Farmers’ Union (ZNFU) under the Core Support Programme (CSP I) through the years 2009-13 and the next phase (CSP II, 7,692 Million Euro) will cover years 2014-2017. CSP I, which ended in December 2013, is one of Finland’s most successful projects in Zambia and has proven to be a very successful way of supporting smallholder farmers in increasing agricultural productivity, incomes and food security. The next phase of the support aims at enhancing ZNFU’s research capacity, lobbying and advocacy function and provision of diversified and improved member services for the smallholder farmers. CSP II serves to increase the coverage of the overall programme in terms of geographic reach across rural Zambia and income levels by about 20% for at least 50% of the targeted farming households. The CSP II is designed to improve ZNFU’s capacity to provide better quality services to smallholder farmers in the following fields: Improved access to on-farm productivity enhancing technologies; improved and expanded access to market and trade facilities by piloting diversified market and facilitation services; enhanced and expanded access to capital and productive assets for small scale farmers; improved access to land and security of tenure.