Thrills in Niger Delta as IFAD concludes supervision roundtable in PH

· NDDC finally agrees to remit $30m counterpart fund

THERE was some excitement in the Niger Delta areas when the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) held its third supervision meeting in Port Harcourt.

Coming on the heels of flood disaster in the zone, IFAD made pronouncements that relieved the victims including $600,000 for agric entrepreneurs affected by the flood.

It was at the same event that the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) finally announced decision to release its counterpart fund of $30m to IFAD to add 13,500 participants in the Livelihood Improvement Family Enterprises for Niger Delta (LIFE-ND) scheme.

The Country Director of IFAD, Dede Koue, who addressed participants at the roundtable in Port Harcourt last week mentioned the objectives of the Supervision Mission thus; to assess the implementation progress and achievement; to provide recommendations to remove bottlenecks and resolve implementation problems; To provide recommendations to better leverage the successful results of the project; and to prepare the Mid-term Review (MTR) plan scheduled in 2023 and propose recommendations for restructuring or adjustments.

Ekoue mentioned key areas of achievement of the LIFE-ND especially that more than 2000 youth and women have established their businesses as agro-entrepreneurs. “Some of them have become incubators themselves (helping to train others).

“Another 5000 youth and women are now in the incubation process (in training) and they will be independent agro-entrepreneurs in 2023. The project has also enhanced the productivity of several value chains including cassava, rice, palm oil, and fisheries”.

Another milestone, according to the Country Director, is that LIFE-ND has rehabilitated several infrastructural facilities such as roads, bridge, small scale irrigation, and plantain sucker chamber of 30 sites of 334 hectares of land for the incubatees.

The national project coordinator of LIFE-ND, Sanni Fatai Abiodun, who gave insights, said the overall goal of LIFE-ND is to realize a transformed rural economy in the Niger Delta from which the rural population can derive prosperity and equal benefit, It will achieve by enhancing income, food security and job creation for rural youth and women through agrienterprise development on a sustainable basis.

Meanwhile, the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) has announced readiness to remit the muchtalked about $30m (N12.9BN) counterpart fund needed to include additional 13,500 youth and women in agroentrepreneurship.

The decision of the NDDC was announced at the review session of the scheme by the NDDC Director of Agriculture and Fisheries, Kelechi Nwelue.

The decision was sequel to a courtesy visit to the newly appointed interim managing director of the NDDC by Dede Koue, the Country Director of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the funding partner.

IFAD and the FG initiated the LIFE-ND. The project targets 38,750 beneficiaries across the nine states of the Niger Delta so long as the NDDC was ready to pay its part, $30m. This was to allow additional 13,500 Niger Delta youths from Rivers, Imo and Akwa Ibom states to join the 25,250 others to make the number 38,750 total for the oil region.