Türkiye - Agrifood Sector Transformation for Rural Jobs and Growth (TARGET) Project

Overview & Synopsis

Turkiye Agrifood Sector Transformation for Rural Jobs and Growth (TARGET) Project for Turkiye, with development objectives to enhance market integration, facilitate farmers’ access to finance, and support more and better-paid jobs in the agrifood sector. Component 1: Reimbursable Finance for Agrifood Sector Modernization and Inclusion supports a Reimbursable Finance Facility managed by the Agriculture and Rural Development Support Institution (TKDK) to catalyze value chain upgrading by agrifood enterprises and producer organizations through investments in processing, storage, cold chain, logistics, packaging, traceability, quality and food safety systems, and climate-resilient technologies, coupled with supplier development programs that link farmers to markets; selection follows transparent, performance-linked scoring that prioritizes job creation, farmer linkages, inclusion of women and youth, climate resilience, competitiveness, export readiness, and geographic targeting of less developed districts, with implementation in partnership with an Eligible Financial Institution for underwriting and repayment discipline. Sub-components include: establishment and operation of the Reimbursable Finance Facility; competitive calls and appraisal of Investment Subprojects; performance-based disbursement and monitoring; and measures to strengthen aggregation and supplier integration. Component 2: Strengthening the Financial Ecosystem for the Agrifood Sector pilots a partial credit guarantee administered by the Credit Guarantee Fund (KGF) to share risk with Participating Financial Institutions (PFI) and expand lending to farmers for medium-term upgrading, technology adoption, resilience, diversification, and seasonal needs, with higher guarantee coverage for women and youth, integration with value chain arrangements, links to agricultural insurance, portfolio caps and monitoring, and potential complementary financing from the International Finance Corporation Financial Institutions Group; Sub-components include: design and capitalization of the guarantee scheme; PFI onboarding and portfolio management; gender-responsive features and risk retention; and reporting, claims, and recoveries administration. Component 3: Project Management and Institutional Strengthening supports TKDK and the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MoAF) with project management, fiduciary, environmental and social compliance, monitoring and evaluation, and a learning agenda, and strengthens the digital footprint by establishing or upgrading a market linkage platform to connect farmers with producer organizations, processors, exporters, and other verified buyers to support Components 1 and 2; Sub-components include: institutional capacity building and systems strengthening; and development and operationalization of digital, data, and information tools that enable market connectivity and service delivery.