The Government of Ethiopia’s 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 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 aims to address constraints and build capacity throughout the chickpea value chain. 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. Ethiopia is uniquely suited to launch such an initiative as it is already the continent's largest producer of chickpea and the sixth largest producer in the world.

USAID will contribute a total of $7 million to support both the commercial and nutrition objectives of the Alliance, providing technical, financial and training assistance. The PepsiCo Foundation, the philanthropic arm of PepsiCo, has provided a grant of approximately $3.3 million to WFP as well as approximately $200,000 to Valid Nutrition, a manufacturer of highly fortified nutritional pastes, to develop a chickpea-based RUSF. PepsiCo is also conducting agriculture pilots and a business case analysis for increasing chickpea productivity. WFP expects to use the chickpea-based supplementary food product in its nutrition work in Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa. It will support farmers’ cooperatives and food processors to develop the product and maintain high quality production standards. The Government of Ethiopia will support the Alliance through policy and research as the project supports the country’s development goals.

Related Resources

USAID Ethiopia: Agriculture and Food Security

USAID Ethiopia: Feed the Future

USAID Ethiopia: Private Sector

USAID Ethiopia: Global Health Initiative

USAID Ethiopia: Nutrition

New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition