This Friday, June 26, Kolda received the General Delegation for Rapid Entrepreneurship of Women and Youth (DER / FJ), after Ziguinchor and Sédhiou. Here, the General Delegate of the DER also came to not only meet the players in the region as part of the 2020 cashew marketing campaign, but also to observe the purchasing and storage operations on the ground. and export of cashew nuts. It is also about seeing how to support actors in the transformation of the raw material in order to generate added value and create jobs for the benefit of women and young people in Casamance. The region has 13 cashew processing and packaging units, according to the players. On the spot, the General Delegate of the DER, Papa Amadou Sarr, accompanied by Boubacar Konta, president of the regional framework of actors in the cashew sector of Kolda and the national college of traders of Senegal, visited the stock store for export of nuts of raw cashew from a young exporter, the cashew nut processing and packaging unit of GIE NEMA Fouladou in Kolda and the storage warehouses of the Ministry of Commerce in Kolda, before going to Governance with his delegation to meet the owner. Nearly a billion injected into Kolda for this campaign Libasse Dia is the president of the cashew export traders of the Kolda region and owner of the stock store for the export of Kolda. It received funding from the DER as part of the said cashew marketing campaign. And he took the opportunity to warmly thank DER. “Let me thank the DER which, this year, supported the cashew sector, particularly for job creation. Because, for a first, we buy the product here in Kolda, we process it here and we export it from Kolda. And it is thanks to the DER, which has given us funding, that we have managed to do all of this here in Kolda, ”he argued. He adds: “Today, exporters have been funded as have cashew collectors. And I remind you that to date, out of the 37 files that we have submitted, the 35 have been validated and 24 have already received their funding totaling 141 million francs. The remaining 11 are being disbursed for an envelope of 60 million CFA francs. And the other two files are under investigation and their amount is 100 million. This makes a total of 300 million CFA francs for cashew collectors in Kolda ”. For exporters, Libasse Dia to indicate that they have received global funding of 600 million CFA francs. "The DER has helped boost the sector and create jobs" According to the young economic operator, “DER has today made it possible to boost the cashew sector and create jobs in Kolda because, this funding has enabled it to undertake and employ more than thirty young people every day. In turn to his business. And thanks to this funding, he was able to collect, in record time, 500 tonnes of raw cashew nuts. "Modernize and further equip existing units" The DER has also decided to support other actors in the region who have not yet benefited from its funding. This is the case of the cashew nut processing and packaging unit of GIE NEMA Fouladou in Kolda. Here, she promised to take over the facilities, modernize and further equip the premises for the benefit of the owners. 12 billion mobilized for the three regions of Casamance Cashew is an important resource for the Casamance natural region. According to sources, it occupies more than 30 to 40% of the population and 7 months of activity in the year. And it is an activity that continues regularly. Hence the need to support the players. This is why, this year, as part of the cashew marketing campaign, the DER, in partnership with Senegalese banks, namely: BNDE, CMS, PAMECAS and the Agricultural Bank of Senegal, was able to inject an envelope of 12 billion CFA francs. This, to support producers, collectors, exporters and processors of cashew nuts from the regions of Ziguinchor, Sédhiou and Kolda. The public institution intends to do better too. "The DER plans to provide more support to players in the sector from all over the region, particularly women and young people, to provide export and processing of cashew nuts but also to set up hangars for the storage of the product and units of modern transformation ”, underlined the General Delegate. 700 million planned to support processing units Regarding the question of the transformation of the product, Papa Amadou Sarr informs that his institution has already committed an envelope of nearly 600 to 700 million CFA francs intended solely to support the processing and packaging units of cashew nuts from Ziguinchor, Sédhiou and Kolda. This will allow him to produce added value because, the kilogram of raw cashew is sold today at 400 CFA francs whereas if it is processed, it is at 4000 CFA francs. He specifies that the DER is also in discussion with people in Vietnam and India to have "the best hullers and the most efficient machines" in order to facilitate work and reduce human intervention on part of the chain. Support in the export of the product Beyond production and processing, the DER also helps players find markets to export the product not only in the sub-region but also in Europe and Asia. And according to the Delegate General, the objective of the DER is to ensure that the containers intended for Europe can leave with cashew nuts already processed and ready for consumption.