Sierra Leone - Rice Agro Industrial Cluster (RAIC)

The Sierra Leone Rice Agro-Industrial Cluster (SL RAIC) Project, in the rural floodplain areas of Pujehun and Bonthe Districts of Sierra Leone, will help advance GoSL’s renewed commitment to sustainably transform the agricultural sector, under its New Direction Agenda and the National Agricultural Transformation Program (NAT 2023). The SL RAIC project is needed to address a major and traditional production challenge of reliance on floating rice cultivation in one of SL’s major rice production areas by introducing solutions that allow for dry-season, modern cultivation and processing of quality rice. The key expected outputs of the Project include more than 3-fold per hectare, increase in Rice production figures (currently 1-5-2.0 tons/ha), commercialisation of rice production and increased wealth for rice producing communities. The SL RAIC Project will be implemented over five years at a total cost of UA 23.29 million. The project primarily contributes to climate adaptation results. As such, 50% of the ADF total approved amount is attributed as climate finance, of which 6 million USD is dedicated to adaptation.