18 Aug
Agriculture, News, Nigeria

Pressure Mounts on Communities Hosting Displaced People Affected by Boko Haram

NaijaAgroNet:

Pressure is mounting on rural communities hosting displaced people affected by the Boko Haram terrorism activities over palpable extension of the attacks on them, reports NaijaAgroNet.


This alarm is coming from the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) which lamented that three consecutive planting seasons have been lost due to the fighting in northeastern Nigeria.


The United Nation’s agency stressed that large influxes of people escaping repeated Boko Haram attacks have put extreme pressure on already poor and vulnerable host communities and their fragile agricultural and pastoral livelihoods, thereby exacerbating the already precarious food and nutrition security situation.


FAO cautioned that failure to rebuild the rural economy will translate into lack of employment opportunities with possible harmful consequences including youth radicalization and enrolment into armed groups, resulting in continued civil unrest.


Similarly, FAO said, restarting food production in the newly accessible areas will have the additional benefits of encouraging displaced populations to return to their homes, while contributing to their improved health and nutrition, hence, it recently commenced seeking of assistance in that regard.


NaijaAgroNet recalls that in northeastern Nigeria, FAO has provided agricultural kits to vulnerable internally displaced people with access to land and host families.


These kits included improved varieties of millet or sorghum and cowpea seeds – a locally adapted and highly nutritious pulse – and fertilizers, enabling beneficiaries to grow their own food during the ongoing rain-fed season. The harvest is expected to start by the end of September and will allow beneficiaries to cover their food needs for up to 10 months.


Isaac Oyimah/GEE

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15 Jul
Africa, Agriculture, Livestock

The Vital Role of Adapted and Resilient Pastoral Systems

1 July 2016. Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. The workshop on Policy Dialogue and Strengthening of the capacity of pastoralists’ networks and organizations reaffirmed the vital role of adapted and resilient pastoral systems in the face of climate change. The three-day gathering workshop was organized by the Department of Rural Economy and Agriculture (AUC/DREA), through Pastoralism Division, under the theme: “Resilience and adaptation to drought conditions and pastoralists systems in Africa”. It was attended by various experts and actors, namely representatives of the AUC, Regional Economic Communities (RECs), pastoralist organisations, Farmers’ Organizations, National Governments and Civil Society Organizations.

The main objective of the workshop was to understand the mechanism for assessing and predicting risks, monitoring and early warning in pastoralists’ regions. The workshop provided the opportunity for the creation of platform for exchanges, dialogues and cooperation among African pastoralist organizations and networks which would facilitate the management, sharing and dissemination of knowledge and best practices of pastoralism.

Delivering the opening remarks on the behalf of AUC, Dr Ahmed ELMEKASS, underlined the importance of pastoralism despite the vulnerability of pastoralists and hence the need for promotion of sustainable pastoralism to take the place it deserves in the debate on development of natural resource management strategies.

“Some of the critical elements necessary to strengthen the capacity of pastoralists include livestock development, policy and governance, gender balanced development, equitable resource tenure, access to social services in addition to efficient resource use”. Mr. Djibo Bagna, Head of Board of the network of peasant organizations and producers in West Africa (ROPPA) 

After three days of intensive sessions, strong recommendations have been formulated to key targets. The role of the African Union Commission in addressing the plight of pastoralists through the preparation of the Policy Framework for Pastoralism was acknowledged. Also African governments were called on to support the implementation of the Policy Framework by committing adequate resources as well as developing suitable policies and laws to enhance cross border livestock mobility that would go a long way to boost food security and nutrition.

As key messages, the workshop noted the need for concerted actions aimed at mitigating the effects of climate change including technical preventive measures and aspects of socio-economic interventions to ease the vulnerability of populations inhabiting arid and semi-arid zones to ensure resilience and adaptation to drought conditions and pastoral systems in Africa.

Delegates noted pastoralism as a business that is a continuum along the demand and supply value chains that would benefit from investment in public infrastructure and provision of basic services to the pastoral communities. Delegates underscored the need for a robust advocacy campaign with solid and scientific evidence, capacity building, favorable policies, structured investments and technological innovations to make pastoralism an attractive venture for women and youth as well as for financial support through credits. The workshop recognized the sensitive land tenure systems within Member States which affect transformation towards sustainable pastoralism in arid and semi-arid zones.

A key recommendation of the workshop was that AUC, in collaboration with RECs, should provide the needed support to cascade the AUC policy framework on Pastoralism in Africa in the New Generation of Regional Agriculture Investment Plans (RAIPs)/National Agriculture Investment Plans (NAIPs) under theComprehensive African Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP).


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11 Jul
Africa, Agriculture, News

African media urged to leverage WBG’s 9,000 open data to boost good governance

Africa media practitioners have been urged to leverage on the World Bank’s estimated 9,000 open data on agriculture, so as to give drive to good governance, reports NaijaAgroNet.

Making this call recently at a 3-day workshop on reporting agriculture hosted by the Africa Media Initiative (AMI) in conjunction with the World Bank in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, the Lead Operations Officer, World Bank Institute’s Global Media Development programme, Mr. Craig Hammer advised participants to explore the power of open data to improve the state of content on agriculture and other sectors of the economy.

He disclosed that World Bank Group, for instance, has over 9,000 development indicators opened including data on health, nutrition, population, gender, poverty and equity, jobs, climate change to name a few.

“There are microdata on 650,000 variables from 1,200 surveys in addition to over 150,000 analyses, reports,” he said.

According to him by leveraging open data, media practitioners on the continent will spur good governance because open data has evidence to drive its story or information.

Hammer, whose presentation was on ‘Data-Driven Journalism Media,’ defined data as information that has been translated into a form that is more convenient to analyze, pointing out that nowadays, the world thrives on three distinct avenues, more so for media practitioners, comprising having access to information and open data, finding agriculture data with today’s relevance.

Showcasing where media fits in open data usage in what he described as information circle, Hammer described media as a watchdog that discloses to the public in real time relevant infomation; microscope which helps to simplify technical governance information thereby promoting accessibility by the public and facilitate engagement.

He also said that by way of media being a megaphone, it helps with the dissemination of now accessible governance information through various channels available to practitioners.

Equally, Hammer said the aforementioned would assist the citizens to understand, discuss and eventually offer feedback for the government to respond adequately.

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