WB receives coffee project proposals

By AUGUSTINE DOMINIC
A TOTAL of 118 proposals have been received by the World Bank-funded coffee component of the productive partnerships in agriculture project (PPAP).
The deadline for the submission of first proposals lapsed on Jan 9.
PPAP project manager David Freyne and PPAP component 2 coordinator Paul Pora said phase one of the partnership project cycle timetable provided in the proposal guidelines would be completed in two weeks.
Business plans submitted would be verified by project management unit, which would ensure such sub-projects were addressing the needs of smallholder farmers. 
The proposals that met the requirement would then be reviewed and ranked by an independent technical advisory committee.
Finally, the best proposals would be contracted for financing and implementation, Freyne said.
Pora said only those proposals from companies and associations that were currently registered with the Investment Promotion Authority or other legal bodies, such as cooperatives and non-governmental organisations with financial management capacity would be selected to progress to phase two.
Freyne said all proposals submitted had been acknowledged already, and those that were not eligible and had not met the standard would be notified and provided with advice by the PPAP office on how to improve on their proposals.
“If there are no serious delays, by early May all approved partnerships will be signing their contractual agreements.
“The second call for proposals is therefore expected to be launched toward the end of April or early May,” Freyne said.
The agreements signed by the partnerships would enable lead partners to assist the smallholder coffee farmers (co-partners) to improve their coffee quality and production. 
The lead partners and their smallholder farmer groups were expected to provide 30% of the cost of the partnership, while PPAP would provide the remaining 70%.
Freyne said PPAP and the lead partners would not be handing out cash money to farmers but would fund the provision of goods and services to the smallholder farmers whose coffee development needs were identified in the partnership proposals.
The release of funding to each partnership would be done in stages.
Here, the second and subsequent draw-downs would be assessed for satisfactory implementation alongside the reporting of fund use from the earlier funding.