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T
he TaiwanICDF is working with
three partner countries in the
African region, including Swaziland,
Burkina Faso, and São Tomé and
Príncipe. According to the World
Economic Forum’s classification in
the “Africa Competitiveness Report
2015,” Swaziland is a middle-income
economy, Burkina Faso is a non-
fragile low-income economy, and
São Tomé and Príncipe is a small
island nation. Although the three
countries vary greatly in population
and geographical location, they
all face the challenges of industrial
restructuring, lack of medical and
public health resources, and climate
change. Therefore, our current
development strategy in Africa
is to simultaneously enhance the
competitiveness of the agricultural
sector, strengthen the public health
care system, and optimize human
resources, in order to assist the
partner countries in building the basic
capacity required for development.
In Swaziland, for instance, nearly
70 percent of the population is
engaged in subsistence farming,
and nearly 70 percent of their output
values come from the sugar industry.
However, the agricultural output
value accounts for only 9 percent
of GDP and the country still needs
to import food from South Africa on
a yearly basis. This indicates that
the agricultural sector’s productive
potential has not been fully realized,
and farming is highly concentrated
in a single cash crop. To address
this situation, the TaiwanICDF
is implementing the Fruit Tree
Production and Marketing Project in
conjunction with the Lower Usuthu
Smallholder Irrigation Project to help
farmer groups build agribusiness
organizations and encourage
development of the fruit industry,
thereby enhancing crop diversity and
improving the economy of the rural
areas.
The TaiwanICDF’s principal
partner countries in Western Asia
include Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.
Given the deteriorating social and
environmental problems in the region
due to economic development
and urbanization, we focus our
efforts in this region on reducing
the urban population’s impact on
the environment and on the ability
to adapt to environmental changes.
For example, we offer joint loans
in the Green Energy Special Fund:
Greater Amman Municipality (GAM)
Solid Waste Project in Jordan, in
cooperation with the European Bank
for Reconstruction and Development
(EBRD), to help Jordan develop
a more sus t a i nab l e mode l o f
processing solid waste and orient
the country toward sustainable
development.
A street in Bagré, Burkina Faso.
Africa and Western Asia