The Government of Gilgit Baltistan and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) have signed a Financing Agreement for the execution of the programme, Economic Transformation Initiative Gilgit Baltistan (ETI-GB).  The overall goal of the ETI-GB programme is to improve incomes and reduced poverty and malnutrition in rural areas of Gilgit-Baltistan region benefitting around 100,000 rural households. Under a 36-month sub-contract signed between ASF and ETI-GB, ASF has deployed value chain technical assistance team (VCTAT) in Gilgit Baltistan that is involved in day-to-day activities of programme’s sub-component “Value Chain Support Fund and Technical Assistance” and is responsible for performing the following tasks:

• Activity-1: Inception report for the sub-component

• Activity-2: Staff orientation and monthly review meetings

• Activity-3: Develop systems, procedures, criteria and monitoring mechanisms for effective and transparent operation of the Value Chain Support Fund

• Activity-4: Provide ongoing support to the project team in the implementation of grants processes

• Activity-5: Develop strategies for value chain development (Seed Potato and Apricot)

• Activity-6: Provide ongoing support to promote commercially viable linkages between the target value chain stakeholders (IFAD 4 Ps Model)

• Activity-7: Organize international exposure visits for the value chain actors

• Activity-8: Ongoing training and capacity building of the value chain stakeholders
• Develop training modules on:
  1. Train-the-trainer training
  2. Training modules – farmer trainings (potato seed)
  3. Training modules – farmer trainings (apricot)
• Organize Train-the-trainer (ToT) trainings for 425 farmers
• Organize value chain trainings for farmers (Attendance by 35,000 participants/sessions)