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The Investment Centre helped design a USD 500 million World Bank-funded project to improve the productivity, market access and resilience of Bangladeshi small-scale livestock producers and agro-entrepreneurs. It was the largest loan ever granted by the World Bank to the livestock sector.

A thriving livestock sector can create jobs, especially for women, young people and the landless, raise incomes and improve access to nutritious and healthy foods in vulnerable rural areas.With this in mind, the project is financing key infrastructure along Bangladesh’s largely informal meat and dairy value chains – from proper storage and cooling systems to upgraded slaughterhouses and collection centres. It is also promoting climate-smart practices, such as improved feeding strategies, as well as animal health, food safety and livestock insurance to protect the assets and incomes of small-scale dairy and meat producers. 

 The Investment Centre helped bring a strong capacity development dimension to the project at all levels, from producer organizations to government ministries. The project is strengthening producer organizations to meet consumer demand, both in quality and quantity, through training based on innovation, participation and ‘learning by doing’. It is also reinforcing the capacity of staff within the Department of Livestock Services and other ministries to improve policy formulation, and set up a livestock information system for more reliable and current data.  

Thanks to the promotion of productive partnerships and a matching grants scheme, selected business entities –large agribusinesses, micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, and producer organizations – will be able to access financing to grow and upgrade their operations with a view to tapping into higher-value markets. 

“The project’s design was the result of a lengthy consultative process with government and private sector actors,” said Manievel Sene, World Bank Task Team Leader. 

“There were a lot of different stakeholders at the table, including farmers, small and large agribusinesses, academia, NGOs, government representatives, donors, technical partners and private service providers, which makes reaching a consensus challenging. Nonetheless, the World Bank, with support from FAO, kept the dialogue moving forward to come up with a concrete technical proposal that reflects the views of all parties. Thanks to an FAO costing exercise, we were able to translate those ideas into actual activities and costs and develop a plan for implementation,”he said.