Okonjo-Iweala Tasks FG to Ensure Return of Abducted School Children, Teachers in Kaduna, Sokoto
Unveils $1.2 million initiative to stem agro-export rejections, build capacity of farmers, small businesses, others, says Nigeria’s future lies in digital trade FG to launch National Trade Intelligence Unit
Director General, World Trade Organisation (WTO), Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, yesterday expressed dismay over the recent abductions of pupils and teachers in Kaduna and Sokoto States, calling on security authorities to rise to the occasion and ensure their immediate recovery.
Okonjo-Iweala, who said the abductions were saddening, particularly urged the National Security Adviser (NSA), Mallam Nuhu Ribadu to do everything possible to ensure the safe return of all the missing persons.
Speaking in Abuja at the launch of the 2024 Technical Assistance and Trade Support programmes for Nigeria, which was an initiative of the WTO, World Bank, and International Trade Center (ITC), she said the abductions were particularly worrisome realising that education remained key to creating economic opportunities for the people.
She said, “It's always wonderful to be back home in Nigeria. But I must confess that while I am happy, I am also sad. I am sad because I am here at a time when once more hundreds of our school children and teachers have been abducted, as a mother, grandmother, educator and someone for whom education is paramount for creating economic opportunity, I am very sad and with the representative of my brother, the National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu here, I hope he can be able to recover them very soon in Kaduna and Sokoto.”
Nonetheless, she said the WTO's latest interventions would assist the quest to bring benefits directly to the people by supporting the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Investment, the federal government, and the states to pursue the country's objectives of diversifying the economy.
She said the country's agricultural sector has the potential to be a major driver of export diversification and job creation, adding that too much of the potential remained unrealised, due to a variety of barriers.
She said, “We all know the story about Nigeria being a significant exporter of palm kernel, groundnuts, palm oil, cotton, and cocoa in the past– but again we all know, the country has since become a net importer of many of those goods.
“Nigeria has not only lost out in agricultural export markets, it is a net food importer spending about billions a year for goods, many of which we can also produce here.
“A World Bank paper put it, and I quote ‘Nigeria… used to be a formidable agricultural exporter. Up to the mid-1960s, the country's share of world agricultural exports was more than 1 percent… However, agricultural exports collapsed as the economy shifted towards petroleum exploitation, and by the mid-1980s Nigeria's world market share for agricultural products had dwindled to less than 0.1 per cent.'”
Okonjo-Iwealal pointed out that some of Nigeria's unrealised potential had to do with trade-related problems on the supply side – adding “and that is what this project is seeking to rectify”.
She said Nigeria remained the world's largest producer and consumer of cowpeas adding that sesame is primarily an export crop, with Nigeria being the world's fourth leading producer, exporting to the EU, Turkey, Japan, South Korea and other Asian markets.
The WTO boss, however, pointed out that the country's cowpea and sesame exports have increasingly faced rejections in several destination markets due to non-compliance with international Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS) requirements.
She said, “For example, Nigeria accounts for over a third of Japan's sesame imports – but health and safety inspections during the past few years have found instances where pesticide residue levels were nearly double the maximum residue limits permissible from 2019 to 2021.”
To tackle these problems, OkonjoIweala said the new programme seeks to develop the “capacities of stakeholders across the sesame and cowpeas value chains to better understand market access requirements, to improve agricultural practices such as pesticide application, hygiene techniques, harvest and post-harvest methods, and food safety.”
She said the project – which will kick off with an initial $1.2 million – of which nearly a million comes from STDF – will also be used to train local food safety advisers.
She explained, “This type of project is one I term a low expenditure, high impact project. The WTO is not a financing agency like the World Bank or IMF but it has a wonderful secret that I find very attractive. It spends small sums of money to make a big impact. You cannot imagine how a million-dollar intervention can earn Nigeria hundreds of millions of dollars if not billions in increased agricultural exports, supporting improved incomes for farmers, exporters, businesses and others once agriculture producers and exporters follow the correct sanitary and phytosanitary standards.”
She stated, “However, to succeed fully, we also need partnership. One of the big gaps in the sesame and cowpeas value chains is the lack of quality post-harvest storage and transport infrastructure – that is, things like modified atmosphere and airtight storage, or the use of triple-layered bags.
“Some producers may be applying pesticides during storage and transport to compensate for storage and transport conditions that are conducive to pests.”
She, however, pointed out that the “STDF project on its own cannot solve all these issues – we would like to partner with other organizations or with states, to improve the storage and transport infrastructure.