FADAMA: World Bank disburses $39m, commences fifth mission

The World Bank has so far disbursed $39 million on the Third National Fadama Development Project Additional Financing.
This is part of concerted efforts to support Nigeria’s agriculture and revenue diversification drive of the Federal Government
The Bank, in a statement by its Task Team Leader, Dr. Adetunji Oredipe, said it will hold its Fadama Implementation Support Mission from June 10 to 27 across eight states of the Federation in conjunction with the Federal Ministries of Finance and Agriculture.
The Board of the Bank had approved additional IDA credit of $200 million on June 28, 2014 to assist the Federal Government of Nigeria to scale up impacts on the ground and strengthen the development effectiveness of the Third National Fadama Development Project by aligning it more closely with the Government agricultural programmes.
The additional financing is supporting clusters of farmers in six selected states with comparative advantage and high potential to increase production and productivity of cassava, rice, and sorghum and horticulture value chains and link them to better organized markets.
As at the last mission in January 2016, 930 business plans have been prepared across the states, out of which 424 business plans were approved and disbursed.
These business plans covered 5,088 hectares of farms across the four value chains and across the core and production cluster States.
Also, harvesting of rice cultivated during the rainy season has been completed in Kano, Lagos, Niger and Enugu States, while cassava has been harvested in Kogi State.
In addition, the first Micro-Finance Bank established through savings mobilized by Fadama Farmers Community Association in Plateau State has been completed and received provisional and operational license from the Central Bank of Nigeria for take-off, while construction/rehabilitation of the Agricultural Equipment Hiring Enterprises centers were ongoing in all the core States except in Lagos and Enugu where lack of counterpart funds have delayed commencement.
The overall objective of the mission is to assess implementation progress of the project by reviewing all project components to accelerate disbursements and focus on results monitoring and reporting.
The mission will be led by Dr. Adetunji Oredipe, the Task Team Leader, and will comprise the National FADAMA Coordinator, Dr. Tayo Adewunmi, and other specialists from the World Bank, officials of the Federal Ministry of Finance, Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and staff of the National and State Project offices, including representatives of NGOs.