Five pillars of FAO’s five-year framework, by country rep

 Minister  warns on desert encroachment..

 

The Country Representative of the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO)in Nigeria,  Mr. Suffyan Koroma has highlighted the five pillars of its five-year framework in Nigeria. He stated them at the launch a five-year strategic Country Programme Framework (CPF) toward enhanced food security in Abuja.

He itemised the pillars as follows:“the first one is to strengthen national food and nutrition security through enhanced nutrition sensitive and climate smart food systems, the second pillar is to support appropriate and operationally effective agricultural policy and regulatory framework. The third one is to support Nigeria’s economy diversification agenda and the promotion of decent employment for youth and women. The fourth pillar is to improve efficient and sustainable management of natural resources and ecosystems, while the fifth pillar is to enhance disaster risk reduction, resilience building and emergency management towards strengthening the humanitarian Development nexus”.

Koroma  explained  that the priority areas of the framework were well-defined in line with the government’s development objectives as enshrined in the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP), the Agricultural Promotion Policy (APP) and other related policy strategy documents, adding that the priority areas would represent the main focus of FAO work in Nigeria to achieve Zero Hunger and would be implemented in a way that it would contribute to the attainment of the 2030 agenda for Sustainable Development.

He added that the 2018 – 2022 Country Programming Framework (CPF), defines the development priorities for collaboration between FAO and government of Nigeria whose outcome and outputs contributes towards achieving national and regional priorities, as well as corporate results and goals, would guide the organisation’s engagement with Nigeria over the next five years.

He called for and promised support for Nigeria’s economic diversification agenda and promotion of decent employment for youth and women in agricultural value chain and disaster reduction, the creation of enabling policy environment for disaster risk reduction and management, amongst others.

Speaking at the event, the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh commended the effort of FAO activities on enhancing food security in Nigeria, pointing out that for 40 years, FAO had been partnering with government providing technical, policy, financial and administrative support to a wide range of initiatives.

He said that it was important for the stakeholders to cooperate with the organisation for the successful implementation of the framework in the face of climate change, warning on the danger in tree cutting, saying that it would result in desert encroachment in the future, which would have dire consequences on agriculture and environment.

The minister noted “that the new danger facing us is that of tree falling everywhere in the country, where people are engaged in cutting down trees to produce firewood even for export. Most people do not realise that deserts are coming at a terrible speed, and the desert is closer than we imagined, and all you need for the desert to prosper is for trees to be cut down. As the desert approaches us, we are facing difficulties with finding the right kind of seeds to plant which can endure high temperatures and also give us good yields for nourishing ourselves,”

Also speaking, the representative of the World Bank, Mr. Tunji Oredipe pledged the support of the World Bank towards achieving greater success in Nigeria by being fully committed to helping the three tiers of government to reduce poverty and foster prosperity for all Nigerians.

He noted that, “World Bank continues to provide technical support in the areas of the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan mid-term review, power sector reform, Public-Private Partnerships as well as population management,  not only in the areas of agriculture and food security.”

Stakeholders noted that climate change was likely to contribute substantially to food insecurity; water required for food production may become scarcer due to increased crop water use and drought. Competition for land may increase as certain areas become climatically unsuitable for production. In addition, extreme weather events, associated with climate change may cause sudden reductions in agricultural productivity, leading to rapid price increases.

They also observed that rising prices have forced growing numbers of local people into poverty, providing a sobering demonstration of how the influence of climate change can result in food insecurity.