Skip to main content

Over 15,000 smallholder women, farmers’ cooperatives benefit from ActionAid’s PFA project - The Great Case

How to Seduce Straight Guys Over 15,000 smallholder women, farmers’ cooperatives benefit from ActionAid’s PFA project

Over 15,000 smallholder women, farmers’ cooperatives benefit from ActionAid’s PFA project

Govt urged to meet 10% budgetary allocation on agriculture

By Gabriel Ewepu – Abuja

Over 15, 000 smallholder women farmers’ cooperatives have benefited from ActionAid Nigeria, AAN’s, Public Financing for Agriculture, PFA, project in 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, in boosting productivity.

This was disclosed by the Country Director, AAN, Ene Obi, in an address of welcome at the Public Financing for Agriculture (PFA) Learning and Close-Out Meeting, held in Abuja.

According to Obi the PFA Project is designed to catalyse increased quantity and quality of public investment in agriculture to increase the productivity and well-being of women smallholder farmers, their households, and communities in Nigeria.

She further stated that the project was able to empower smallholder women farmers and Civil Society Organisations, CSOs, through capacity building, evidence-based data generation, and the creation of policy and programmes influencing spaces.

She added that the Project also initiated the formation of the largest movement of smallholder women farmers in Nigeria; Small-Scale Women Farmers Organization in Nigeria (SWOFON) which is giving voice to smallholder women in the 36 States in Nigeria and the Federal Capital Territory.

READ ALSO: World Sleep Day: Mouka harps on healthy future through quality sleep

She also appreciated individuals, government institutions, and organisations who contributed to the progress recorded by the PFA Project.

She said: “Members and non-members of SWOFON across Nigeria now benefiting from government support and services; including training, extension services, inputs, credit, grants, agricultural machineries, and facilities which hitherto they never benefited from.

“We have invited you all here today to share the successes and learnings of the Public Financing for Agriculture (PFA) Project with key stakeholders and to officially close out the PFA Project.

“Some of the lessons learnt include that supporting smallholder women farmers associations results in wider reach of programme interventions and effective advocacy for policy change by smallholder women farmers at all levels where the organisation has a presence.

“For example, the Small-Scale Women Farmers Organization in Nigeria (SWOFON) now covers 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) of Nigeria and reaching over 15,000 cooperatives whose members have influenced agriculture financing policies for smallholder farmers.

“Working in collaboration with other organisations helps us to better leverage on each other’s area of strengths, additional resources, and skills.”

She also expressed optimism that, “Nigeria can feed itself and feed many countries in Africa. Serious attention and investment are needed. Agriculture used to be the main economic stay of Nigeria, and Nigeria is so blessed with both natural and human resources.

“The workforce is extensive and available. Nigeria must diversify its economy and agriculture is a great opportunity for creating employment.

She (Obi) called on government and donor agencies to ensure the 10 per cent Maputo Declaration on budgetary allocation to the agricultural sector is achieved and surpassed in Nigeria as the Buhari-led administration is harping on the agricultural sector to diversify the economy in order to create jobs, generate foreign exchange revenue and industrialize the economy.

“We expect that partners and donors will sustain the momentum through their interventions, project designs, and funding while we expect the federal and states government to increase funding to agriculture to meet the 10% Maputo Declaration and concentrate investments in Extension Services, Women in Agriculture, Credit, Labour Saving Technologies, Inputs, Climate Resilient Sustainable Agriculture (CRSA)/Agroecology, Research and Development.

“The federal and states government should also ensure they organise stakeholders consultative meetings on the agriculture budget to get inputs from smallholder women farmers and CSOs to prioritise needs before Calls for Budget Circulars”, she stated.

Vanguard News Nigeria

The post Over 15,000 smallholder women, farmers’ cooperatives benefit from ActionAid’s PFA project appeared first on Vanguard News.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

COVID-19 second wave: Edo records 14 new cases - The Great Case

How to Seduce Straight Guys Edo government on Thursday said that it had recorded 14 new coronavirus cases, urging residents to be proactive and observe all precautionary measures to guard against spread of the deadly virus. The State Incident Manager on COVID-19, Dr Andrew Obi, in a statement in Benin on Thursday said that government had reactivated isolation and treatment centres. Obi urged residents in the state to take personal responsibility in protecting themselves to prevent spread of the virus while celebrating the beginning of the New Year. READ ALSO:  Teachers, doctors-in-training, lion tamers to earn same salary in Cuba According to him, nine of the recorded cases were confirmed at the University of Benin Teaching Hospital, while the remaining five cases were confirmed at the Irrua Specialist Hospital laboratory. “As residents celebrate the beginning of the New Year 2021, there is need for everyone to be cautious, proactive and observe all precautionary measures a...
Post a Comment
Read more

Vaccine nativity and naivety in a fractured world - The Great Case

How to Seduce Straight Guys By Owei Lakemfa HUMANITY in 2020, the year we bade a hurried goodbye to, yesterday, like snails, withdrew into their shells following the outbreak of the corona virus COVID-19 pandemic. It was an instinctive abandonment of multilateralism. Not even the countries that claim to be religious entities, remembered that they are enjoined to be their brother’s keeper. Like Cain in the Holy Book, they would have retorted to any enquiry about their action: Am I my brother’s keeper? However, it was a vain scramble of individualism. Human beings behaved less out of knowledge and more like the child who thought that if war were to break out, all he would need do, is run and hide under his grandmother’s bed, as if the war can never get there. So, it was in the shell of each country’s skin the virus incubated each with its own solitary index case. The result at the close of that troubling year, was that from the seven isolated cases from the Wuhan fish market, humani...
Post a Comment
Read more

CSO faults job racketeering allegation in Fed Poly - The Great Case

How to Seduce Straight Guys By Gabriel Ewepu – Abuja A Civil Society Organisation, CSO, Transparency Advocacy For Development Initiative, TADI, has faulted alleged job racketeering in Federal Polytechnic, Ile Oluji, Ondo State. This was contained in a statement signed by the Executive Director of the organisation, Yomi David, where the CSO described the allegations as misleading and baseless with intention to misinform Nigerians. According to the statement the CSO conducted a thorough and independent investigation over the allegations leveled against the Rector, Prof. Emmanuel Fasakin, but found out that the allegation was not true. The statement reads in part, “Our organisation with the culture of doing diligence at getting to the root of any matter or perceived wrongdoing in any sphere of the society we moved into action to get at the root of the matter in other to establish fact and balance information being released to the public domain through any medium by which such issues...
Post a Comment
Read more