ActionAid Nigeria, Oxfam hold stakeholders meeting on 2019 agriculture budget

The ActionAid Nigeria, Oxfam n collaboration with the Ministry of Budget and National Planning, the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, the ECOWAS COMMISSION has invited stakeholders for a consultative Meeting on the 2019 Agriculture Budget.
The meeting which is scheduled to hold at Swiss International D’Palms Airport Hotels, Lagos from 25th and 26th this month is according to ActionAid Country Director, Mrs Ene Obi, is expected to facilitate conversations amongst key stakeholders connecting the continental framework, the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) targets and government intentions within the Agriculture Prom otion Policy.
She said the meeting will further Pre- Validate the National Agricultural Investment Plan 2 (NAIP2) and facilitate more citizens’ inputs into the 2019 Agriculture Budget, creating ownership, linking and integrating programmes that will help Nigeria achieve food security, wealth creation and deliverables within the continental CAADP Results Framework while also supporting effective biennial reporting by Nigeria to the African Union Heads of States and Government in line with the Malabo Declaration and Commitments of 2014.
It would be recalled that the federal government National Agriculture Investment Investment (NAIP) – 2 for the implementation f the Nigerian agriculture promotion policy (APP), themed the Green Alternative” 2017 – 2020 stated that the overnment has identified three (3) key programmes for implementation from year 2018-2020, ranging from doubling productivity to improving access to export markets in actualizing its vision for the agricultural sector.
Adding that each programme comprised of projects which are supported by a portfolio of enablers and levers that drive activities with consistency with the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) of the Federal Government.
“Each project’s preliminary cost has been estimated using a number of common parameters.
The duration of the project from a spending perspective is 3 years in line with the ERGP which respectively, translates into N844,277,149,241.82 as total projected cost, N243,330,190,513.71as anticipated appropriated allocation and N600,946,958,728.11 as funding gap, for the period,” the policy stated.
As ambitious as this policy may look, some stakeholders still believes that this could not be achieve with the consistent one percent budgetary allocation to the sector.