October 7, 2022
Today, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) announces a new $50 million investment to help expand Moldova’s rural economy and further bolster resilience in the face of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, which has constrained Moldovan exports and threatened Moldova’s economic prosperity.
Through the new Rural Competitiveness and Resilience Activity (RCRA), USAID will continue its support to increase Moldovan agricultural sales and profitability, and sustain economic growth opportunities in Moldova.
Over a period of 5 years, the RCRA activity will focus its support on a range of partners and products with potential to transform the economy and lift up rural communities. The activity will facilitate connections in key agricultural value chains, such as fruits, organics, vegetables, honey, and wine. The activity will also increase productivity, improve sustainability of the agriculture sector, incentivize private sector investments and partnerships, and enable reforms that will improve the profitability of Moldovan agriculture. RCRA will benefit rural communities and help revive the tourism economy of Moldova, which is suffering from residual effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, and now Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
RCRA will build the capacity of local groups and associations of agricultural producers, empower women and young farmers, and create a favorable environment that will generate new investments and skilled labor for selected value chains.
The activity will improve the overall sustainability of Moldova’s agriculture sector by mitigating the adverse impacts of climate change, and pivoting its agricultural production and exports, which have suffered as a result of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. The activity will support investments to improve the resilience of agricultural producers by adopting modern production and post-harvest technologies and renewable energy solutions that will counter increased input costs which have resulted from the ongoing war. The activity will further continue to build the capacity of Moldova’s agriculture sector to export to the European Union and meet international standards to expand to new markets outside of Belarus and Russia.
Through RCRA, USAID will continue investments that will foster the transformation of Moldovan rural areas into engines of economic growth for the country leading to improved living standards for Moldovans in the long term. USAID is proud to continue its thirty-year partnership with Moldova through this new five-year activity.
The launching ceremony of the Rural Competitiveness and Resilience Activity in Moldova will be conducted today, October 7, in the presence of Prime Minister Natalia Gavrilita, US Ambassador in the Republic of Moldova, Kent D. Logsdon, Mission Director of USAID Moldova, Scott Hocklander, members of the Government, as well as businessmen and exporters in the agricultural area, wine makers, representatives of the touristic sector. The event will start at 2PM, in Cosernita village, Criuleni district, on the premises of Elit Fruct company.
Note: RCRA is implemented by Chemonics International in partnership with international and local organizations. Additional partners will be included to sustain workforce development, agricultural education and research bodies, local NGOs and agricultural associations, and the government of Moldova. The total value of RCRA is $50 million.
- Comunicat de presa în limba română (PDF 115 KB)
- Пресс-релиз на русском языке (PDF 132 KB)
