The New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), Nigeria, has unfolded its plans to cushion the effect of Covid-19 on Nigerian farmers.
To realise this mandate, the African Union Development Agency (AUDA)/NEPAD constituted the National Steering Committee on innovative to strengthening smallholder farmers` capabilities in Nigeria.
Speaking with journalists during a courtesy on the chief executive officer, AUDA-NEPAD, Ms. Gloria Akobundu, in Abuja, Thursday, the chairman of the steering committee and the governor of Kwara state, Alhaji Abdulraham Abdulrazaq, commended the agency for the initiative.
Abdulrazaq said since 90 per cent of Nigeria’s population were farmers and rural dwellers, the target of the programme would focus on the grassroots via collaboration with governors.
“The whole idea is to make sub-national government committed; how do you commit somebody, make him part of the programme, providing part of funding to show seriousness to the projects,” he said.
He said the engagement of the governors in the programme would create access to land, seedlings and other developmental asset to the farmers.
The governor, however, called on the state and local governments to adopt NEPAD’s programmes, noting that it could contribute immensely to job creation, eradicating poverty, among others in the country.
Earlier, Ms Akobundu had said the initiative was in line with the agency’s mandate and the vision of President Muhammadu Buhari to diversify the nation’s economy via agriculture to create jobs.
She said the initiative was aimed at implementing the outcome of NEPAD’s White Paper to cushion the effects of Covid-19, which had taken the country’s economy backward.
