NES#19: Participants seek commitment of 10% of national budgets to agriculture

NES#19: Participants seek commitment of 10% national budgets to agriculture

September 6, 2013 | Filed under: main story | Posted by: Editor

Summiteers at the just concluded 19th Nigerian Economic Summit (NES#19) rose from the meeting recommending strongly that government should put more actions to its talks on the agricultural transformation programme by increasing funding to the agricultural sector to at least 10 percent of the entire national annual budget.

This, they said, will not only tackle the financing needs of that sector but also align with the provisions of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) which Nigeria is also signed to.
The summiteers also called passionately for the setting up of a legislative framework that would back the Federal Government’s agricultural transformation agenda in order to ensure the sustainability of its key components.

They also called for the setting up of a measurement and evaluation process to access progress made in implementing the agricultural agenda as well as to ensure that institutions that endure are built.
Presenting the summit recommendations to the audience which had Vice President Namadi Sambo present, Frank Nweke, director general, Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG) also noted the participants’ push for government to align educational curriculum with national agricultural aspirations.

Nweke also noted that the stakeholders would want the ministry of agriculture to set up a one stop shop for agribusiness in the country where information about the nation’s agricultural resources would be domiciled to also for easier participation and investments.

By: Onyinye Nwachukwu & Harrison Edeh