Zambian President, Edgar Lungu on Monday expressed satisfaction that a World Bank supported project on climate resilience has started bearing fruits.
The Zambian leader said the innovation brought by the Zambia Integrated Forest Landscape Project will go a long way in improving food security, livelihoods and enable the country to attain its climate change mitigation objectives in line with international climate change commitments.
The Zambian leader was speaking when he inspected a cashew nut farm in eastern Zambia’s Petauke district, one of the initiatives of the project, according to a release from the Ministry of National Development Planning.
The farm is practicing climate-smart agriculture techniques taught by the project.
He said the innovation will improve food security and livelihoods in rural communities while achieving climate change mitigation objectives.
The Zambian leader hoped that more farmers would adopt climate-smart agriculture techniques in order to promote the production of high value crops.
National Project Coordinator, Tasila Banda commended the Zambian government for its commitment to combat climate change through interventions being implemented by the project.
“As an integrated project, the only way to keep these interventions sustainable is to engage the private sector who are helping communities to generate bankable project proposals for enterprises around agriculture value chain, non-timber forest value and eco-tourism,’’ she said.
The Zambia Integrated Forest Landscape Project is an initiative of the government through a loan facility from the World Bank at a total cost of 32.8 million U.S. dollars.
It is meant to support rural communities in the eastern part of the country to allow them to better manage the resources of their landscape to reduce deforestation, improved landscape management, increase environmental and economic benefits.