By Obinna Unaeze
Abuja – The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) is committed to strengthen its partnership with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) for the success of the Value Chain Development Programme (VCDP) on rice and cassava.
IFAD’s National Programme Coordinator, Dr Ameh Onoja, made this known in Abuja at a 2-day workshop on “Knowledge Management Communication (KMC) for NAN’s agriculture correspondents.
“This meeting will look at our Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed with NAN and find a way of improving it.
“It will also enable our KMC team and NAN correspondents prepare working materials in order to tell our success stories and identify areas of challenges to enable us tackle them,’’ he said.
Speaking at the occasion, Mr Bayo Onanuga, the Managing Director of NAN recalled that the agency signed MoU with IFAD in 2010 to cover its activities.
According to Onanuga, we signed MoU with IFAD on information sharing and dissemination.
Represented by Rev. Felix Ajide, an Assistant Editor-In-Chief and Head of Agriculture Desk of the agency, Onanuga charged agency’s correspondents to balance their stories by reporting the views of all stakeholders.
“We must show commitment to IFAD activities by writing feature stories and news analysis,” he said.
He said that the management of the agency had designed a new portal for members of the public to access NAN content.
Earlier, Mrs Vera Onyeaka-Onyilo, IFAD KMC Advisor in the country, said that the VCDP was part of Federal Government’s agricultural transformation through commodity value chain approach.
Onyeaka-Onyilo said that the programme would enhance productivity and access to markets for rice and cassava small holder farmers.
She said the Federal Government was implementing the VCDP through targeted groups such as poor rural households, especially women and youths.
The advisor said that the programme which was being implemented in the six states, Benue, Anambra, Ebonyi, Niger, Ogun and Taraba commenced in February 2015 and would end in June 2020.
Onyeaka-Onyilo put the cost of the programme at $109.9 million for the period, saying that IFAD contributed a loan of $75.4 million which is 71 per cent of the total cost with an additional $500, 000 grants.
She said that the balance of the money would come from the Federal, State and Local Governments, including the beneficiaries.
Also speaking, Mr Moukhtar Adamu, IFAD Consultant on KMC and former NAN Editor advised correspondents covering the activities of the fund to work with the KMC personnel in generating stories. (NAN)