Project targets 40 percent of population

Sao Tome and Principe is to receive a loan of US $9.97 million from the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) for a US $ 13.45-million programme to help develop small-scale farming and fishing in the West African state of about 140,000 people, IFAD reported on Friday. The focus of the programme is diversifying agricultural production away from cocoa, which accounts for 95 percent of the archipelago's exports, by supporting livestock rearing and small-scale fishing, as well as improving roads and farmers' houses. The targeted beneficiaries are some 8,000 farming families assigned plots under a land reform programme, and 3,000 fishing households, including 2,200 fishermen and 3,000 women who earn a livelihood by selling fish. The entire target group, whose annual per capita revenue amounts to between US $162 and US $200, totals about 58,000 people - 41 percent of the population of Sao Tome, IFAD said. The loan agreement was signed on Friday at IFAD's headquarters in Rome. The archipelago's government will contribute US $1.18 million while the beneficiaries will provide the equivalent of US $840,000. Another US $1.45 million is expected to come from the French Development Agency and France's Foreign Ministry, IFAD said.