The Federal government has assured the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) that it has set aside funds to pay counterpart funds for implementing the FGN-IFAD support programme.
The Minister of State for Agriculture and Food Security, Senator Aliyu Abdullahi, while speaking at the sidelines of the ‘FGN-IFAD Cooperation Portfolio Review’ and Exhibition held in Abuja affirmed the Federal Government’s commitment to strengthening its relationship with the development Bank.
He said “In terms of counterpart funding, since we came on board, in the briefings we received, we saw that as a gap and we have taken steps in this year’s budget. We have included funds better than the previous year to ensure that we meet our obligations.”
Abdulahi however affirmed that the partnership between the Federal Government and IFAD is yielding results in food production in terms of job creation and boosting the rural economy.
He explained that the essence of the review was to identify gaps and how to tackle the issues involved to make it easier for IFAD to assist the country with a portfolio program.
He stressed the need for improvement In terms of the speed with which project implementations are done saying the constraint need to be evaluated within the context of Nigeria project management offices to strengthen, and give them all the necessary capacities they need to be able to meet up to submissions of projects, or documents or reports to IFAD.
Also, the Associate, Vice President, IFAD, Dr Donal Brown, acknowledged that Nigeria is serious with food production, saying “My major takeaway from the meeting is how serious the government is in addressing the food issues in Nigeria.
“I was overwhelmed by the leadership by so from the Minister of State there, but I think IFAD and the Government of Nigeria, have a long deep partnership between good friends, you can speak frankly, and look at all the issues there is so many successes but also challenges so we had a really good conversation.”
Meanwhile, IFAD Executive Director, Nigeria, Dr Yaya Olaniran, while speaking during the Gender Dialogue advocated the need to increase women education to enhance food production and national development.
