EthioPEA Alliance Announced: Government of Ethiopia, USAID, WFP and PepsiCo Launch Alliance for Nutrition and Agriculture Production

During the Grow Africa Investment Forum in Addis Ababa on May9, 2012, the Government of Ethiopia’s (GoE) Ministries of Health and Agriculture and Agriculture Transformation Agency, PepsiCo, Inc., the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and the UN World Food Program (WFP) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to support a new EthioPEA Alliance. This public-private collaboration will seek to expand Ethiopia’s potential to be an international source of chickpeas for export while increasing the availability of nutritious food domestically.

The EthioPEA Alliance will decrease barriers to increasing the production, domestic use, and export of chickpea in Ethiopia. It will seek to foster economic growth and improve the availability and affordability of nutritious, locally sourced food products, including chickpea-based ready-to-use supplementary food (RUSF), for low-income populations as well as others in Ethiopia and in export markets. 

The State Minister of Agriculture, Wondirad Mandefro, said that “Ethiopia is uniquely suited to launch such an initiative. It is already the continent’s largest producer of chickpeas and the sixth largest producer in the world.”