By Palma Ileye
Federal Government has said that it will strengthen collaboration with the Food and Agriculture Organization, FAO, through the Ministry of Budget and Economic Planning to achieve the country’s objectives on Food, Nutrition, and coordination of development programmes in Nigeria.
Minister of Budget and Economic Planning, Senator Abubakar Atiku Bagudu stated this when the Representative-ad Interim of Food and Agriculture Organisation in Nigeria and his team paid him a courtesy visit in his office in Abuja.
Bagudu said the Ministry was ready to work with FAO to access funds for all food value chains supported by the United Nations, climate change and other areas of expertise.
He called on FAO to extend support to Nigeria sub region as some of the challenges faced are regional.
Citing the Sahelian problem cutting across many countries, he said “many pastoralists whose livelihood depends on movement from north to south for grazing and this has become a major impediment to agriculture today.”
He said, “One of the mandates of this Ministry is regional economic cooperation, the ministry work with ECOWAS in economic issues and all Africa free trade arrangements, so I believe any initiative beyond Nigeria, we have the mandate to work with you to see how we can boost and support it.”
The Minister noted the FAO offer to support Nigeria in fund raising for developmental projects and called on line Directors in the ministry to liaise with the organization to know the criteria for assessing the offers.
Earlier in his remarks, the Food and Agriculture Organisation in Nigeria Representative-ad Interim in Nigeria, Mr. Dominique Koffy Kouacou said they were in the ministry to discuss how FAO can support the Government of Nigeria through the ministry of Budget and Economic Planning on resource mobilization for food systems and programme quality development.
He also stated the Hand-in-Hand initiative in which FAO have developed five value chains with the Ministry of Agriculture among which are Tomatoes, Maize, Dairy, Fishery and Aquaculture and Cassava value Chains.
“We have a room for Nigeria to present value chains and then we organize a one on one meeting with Nigeria delegation and the private sector to work on the funding,” he said.
He added that the total fund earmarked for this value chains was 3.2 billion US Dollars which will run in more than 40 countries.
