ComCashew creates over 46,500 jobs in Ghana

The Competitive Cashew initiative (ComCashew) has since its inception in 2009 trained more than 40,000 farmers and created over 46,500 jobs in production and processing of cashew.

This was contained in a press release made available to the Ghana News Agency at the commencement of the Second Session of the Fourth Edition of the Master Training Programme on Cashew Value Chain Promotion jointly organised by ComCashew and African Cashew Alliance (ACA).

The release signed by Ms Rita Weidinger, the Executive Director of ComCashew on Monday in Sunyani said the event received support from the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) and the Cocoa Research Institute Ghana (CRIG).

The aim of the five-day Program slated to end on Friday, “is to increase theoretical knowledge and practical skills of African cashew experts along the value chain and thus to further promote the competitiveness of African cashew”.

It provided a platform for 75 cashew experts coming from Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Mali, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Togo and Zambia “to share knowledge, discuss best practices and lessons learnt as well as to build national and regional networks for future collaboration,” it said.

The release indicated the programme would mainly focus on improved planting material development, establishment of new plantations and design of adult training programme among others.

The release added that participants would be introduced to monitoring and evaluation, gender and cashew value chain promotion, adding that at each session, “there is a combination of topics on self-reflection and perception management and on behaviors and values that affect learning and teaching skills”.

It mentioned that during knowledge sharing sessions of theories and their application, participants would learn about all aspects of the cashew value chain from production and processing of raw cashew nuts, to economics, cashew market dynamics, marketing and financing mechanisms.

The release stated on return to their host institutions, the participants would have a multiplier effect on the cashew industry when sharing their knowledge and experiences gained from “this tailor-made training”.

The highlight of the programme would be a field visit to the Cocoa Research Institute of Ghana (CRIG) research station and farm visits to the cashew production areas around Sunyani, it concluded.

The ComCashew constitutes a new type of multi -stakeholder partnership in development cooperation, the release said and added that the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit GIZ (GmbH) had been commissioned with the management of the project.

It said the organisation benefits from the diverse commercial and technical expertise of their private and public sector partners, saying that key cooperation partners in Ghana are the MoFA and the CRIG.