United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is providing $900,000 support to a local NGO Human Development Organisation Doaba (HDOD), based in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, to help improve Medicinal and Aromatic Plant (MAP) sector.
Agnes G Luz, Chief of Party Entrepreneurs and Yousuf Jan, Executive Director HDOD signed the sub-agreement on July 12, 2011 in Islamabad to carry out the project titled "Value Chain Development of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants" in various districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa including Dir Upper, Swat and Shangla.
The funding support will be provided through a sub-award by USAID Pakistan Entrepreneurs Project. The initiative will help local MAP collectors in many ways and is expected to increase their income by at-least 50 percent in the course of the project. Interventions include technical training to MAP collectors, business and marketing training for sales agents, development of linkages with alternative markets and relevant business service providers, and collectors' mobilisation and capacity building.
These interventions are expected to result in at-least 50 percent increase in the income of 12,000 MAP collectors, amounting to $1.68 million, shortly after the end of the project. Value-chain work is a crucial step in ensuring that 5,000 MAP collectors supported in terms of training and toolkits, under the Post Flood Livelihood Recovery project by USAID and HDOD and 7000 more MAP collectors, get connected to better buyers from viable and more sustainable markets at the local, national and international level.