(Ecofin Agency) - Gabon has just taken another step in the implementation of the GRAINE program (Gabonaise des réalisations agricoles et des initiatives des nationaux engages – Gabonese Agricultural Achievements and Initiatives of Committed Nationals). Indeed, the government has just announced the departure of 54 trainees to Malaysia.

The young people, first of a group of 2,500, will spend four months in the country training in agricultural techniques in order to, upon their return, work as supervisors monitoring the progress of the program. Expressing his views on this journey, the Gabonese president Ali Bongo Ondimba said: “the first people to go are in a certain way the ambassadors of our great ambition: to enable our country to achieve food self-sufficiency by developing agricultural co-operatives generating jobs and creating stability in our villages.”

Launched with great pomp a few months ago, the GRAINE program could change the Gabonese agricultural environment, making this sector one of the development drivers of the country. Indeed, its aim is to farm 200,000 hectares by 2020, create 20,000 jobs and multiply fourfold the contribution of agriculture to the Gabonese GDP.