TRACCSA

The TRACCSA project (Transboundary Cooperation for Climate Smart Agriculture) pursues a transformative approach to international development cooperation in agriculture: Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) as the guiding principle for resilient, productive, and climate-adapted farming in the border region between Uganda and Tanzania. CSA combines the dimensions of sustainable productivity growth and climate change adaptation as its action-oriented principle. The starting point is a baseline survey, which revealed that only 26% of farmers are familiar with CSA and that key crops such as beans and maize are frequently grown at a loss, a clear mandate for targeted knowledge transfer and capacity building.

At the heart of the project are approximately 2,250 farmers organised in 90 groups across the border districts of Kyotera (Uganda) and Missenyi (Tanzania), implemented by the local partner organisations MADDO and MAPEC. The farmer groups work together across three cross-border regions of the two districts. This is one of the project's particular strengths: farmers from Uganda and Tanzania learn from one another, share experiences, and develop solutions together, because climate change knows no borders and the challenges on both sides are the same. The groups receive systematic training in CSA practices and support in their organisational development, with the aim of gradually growing into effective cooperatives. Cooperatives are the crucial next step: they enable collective market access, joint bargaining power, and long-term economic independence for their members. In total, the project is establishing 6 cooperatives, bringing together around 1,800 people.

For the Euregio Tyrol–South Tyrol–Trentino, TRACCSA offers a concrete, living partnership with the African continent, and therefore much more than symbolic international cooperation. Africa is the continent of the future: growing demographically, agriculturally significant, and playing a key role in global climate policy. Through TRACCSA, the Euregio creates a genuine North-South exchange and builds real relationships with farmers, organisations, and local institutions in Uganda and Tanzania. The cross-border thinking that the Euregio practises every day finds its reflection here: in a region arbitrarily divided by a border drawn under colonial rule, whose people nonetheless share a common culture, language, and history, and who are now working together towards a climate-resilient future.