UK launches programme targeting Nigeria’s food system

•Announces £55m contract, £2.89m grant as part of £95m project

United Kingdom’s (UK) Foreign Secretary, James Cleverly, has announced the launch of a programme, Propcom+, which supports climate and growth by addressing environmental, social and economic challenges in Nigeria’s food and land-use system.

A £55 million contract and £2.89 million grant was announced as part of the £95 million Propcom+ eight-year UK International Climate Finance programme, aimed at supporting climate-resilient and sustainable agriculture and forestry that benefit people, climate and nature.

The programme seeks to support more than four million people, 50 per cent of whom will be women, to adopt and scale sustainable agricultural practices that increase productivity and climate resilience while reducing emissions and protecting natural ecosystems.

Propcom+ builds on the UK government’s investment in agriculture through the Propcom Mai-karfi programme, which ended in March 2022 after supporting over 1.25 million persons with improved incomes through key market reforms and policies that benefitted poor women and men in northern Nigeria.

A joint statement by Propcom+ and UK International Development, yesterday, said Cleverly also highlighted how UK’s support would help to unlock $210 million of financing from the African Development Bank (AFDB) for participating Nigerian states for the development of critical infrastructure and related activities under the Special Agro-industrial Processing Zones (SAPZ) programme.

The statement quoted the British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Richard Montgomery, who spoke after the event, as saying: “Tackling the effects of climate change and lowering emissions is a key priority for the UK government and we remain committed to building sustainable pro-poor climate-resilient growth in Nigeria through the new Propcom+ programme, which will address environmental, social and economic challenges in the country’s food and land-use systems.

“It will do this by working through strategic market actors to increase productivity of smallholder farmers, improve nutrition and food security, enhance climate resilience, pursue lower emissions and protect and restore nature, while also tackling some of Nigeria’s underlying drivers of conflict and insecurity.”