Over 80,000 households in Adamawa and Kebbi States have been empowered through the European Union’s support to food security and resilience in Northeast Nigeria, according to Constant Tchona, the Oxfam Country Director.
Tchona disclosed this while fielding questions from journalists at the project close-out review meeting held in Abuja.
The Pro resilience Action (PROACT) project, which ran for five years, targeted seven local government areas – three in Kebbi and four in Adamawa states.
Tchona said more than 120 communities in the two states have been impacted positively through the programme.
“When we said communities, we are not talking about small villages. We are talking about communities of the size of 2000 households.
“This means that we are clustering a lot of villages and hamlets together to form those communities.
“We have 13 interventions and it’s for financial inclusion so that the people can have money in their coffers and be able to do businesses.
“It’s about farming like the extension service and the knowledge and information they need to grow whatever they are growing and to prevent the middlemen to come and cheat them.
“But also, it’s about access to inputs because they need access to input and we have been able to facilitate that.”
He said the project had been able to facilitate food preservation and reservation, adding that though there were a lot of big silos in the communities by the government, they were not effective enough.
“So, we think what needs to be done is that we should centralise those things and put it in the hands of people to manage and you see, you are going to have more effective reserves,” Tchona said.
He said the project in Kebbi and Adamawa had been successful so far with the supports of the government, calling on state governments in Nigeria to study and replicate it in their respective states.
He also advocated the distribution of more resources to the local governments, saying that is the missing link in the development of the country.
Also speaking, Temitayo Omole, the Programme Manager of the European Union delegation to Nigeria and ECOWAS, said the PROACT project targeted improvement in food production, access to liquid cash and market access.
Omole, who was responsible for the PROACT food security project which was implemented by Oxfam in Adamawa and Kebbi, said the project had delivered on all its set objectives.
He added that the project had now been expanded to Taraba State following its success so far.
