World Bank partners Adamawa to spend $7.5m on Agriculture

world Bank

The Adamawa Government on Friday said it would partner the World Bank to spend 7.5 million dollars (about N3.54 billion) to fund agriculture programmes in the state.

The state’s Commissioner for Agriculture and Natural Resources, Mr Waziri Ahmadu, said this at the commencement of training for staff and stakeholders of Fadama 111 – Second Additional Financing (AF11) project for North-East in Yola.‎

Ahmadu said that the state government would benefit from the financial support by improving on food security and livelihood of Internal Displaced Persons (IDPs) in the state.

He said that 7.5 million dollars was a huge sum of money to support communities in the state with, especially at this time that the country was experiencing recession.

“The World Bank’s aim of improving food security and agriculture restoration was in line with the state and Federal Government’s agenda to improve the livelihood of the IDPs through agriculture.

“I am assuring the World Bank team of the state government’s collaboration to make sure that the project succeeds and is completed in good time.”

The commissioner said that the government would pay its counterpart fund and that arrangements were ongoing to pay for other outstanding projects of about N100 million.

He thanked the World Bank team led by Dr Adetunji Oredipe for its support, assuring that the project would be implemented successfully.

Earlier, the Project Engineer and AF11 Desk Officer, Mr Ibrahim Alkali, said that AF11 would utilise existing institutional structure of the ministry of agriculture at federal and state levels to coordinate the project implementation.

“The Fadama national office will also be responsible for day-to-day coordination of the project and support with training of staff, solid procurement, management, monitoring, and systems evaluation.

“We will show diligence and follow established World Bank procedure and also report to the national coordinator of our achievement on regular basis,” he said.

Alkali said that the criteria used in selecting the beneficiaries under AF11 as households and displaced persons, included size of household ranging from 10 members to 15 members.

“Others include farmland ownership, relevant enterprises, types of skill, level of distress, level of commitment, partial asset acquisition, IDPs in formal and informal camps,” he added.

Mr Iyiola Akande of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) said that all hands must be on desk to address challenges facing the North-East.

“After fighting the insurgency, we have to resettle and rehabilitate these displaced people. NEMA has been in the forefront since the beginning of this challenge.

“The good thing is that both the national and international stakeholders are coming to address the problem under AF 11 for the development of our country.‎

“We hope that everything about financial assistance has put in place to ensure the restoration of livelihoods of the IDPs will be well addressed to have a good result.”