Multi-Agency Partnership Commits $500m To Enhance Agricultural Data Systems in 50 Countries By 2030

The World Bank, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), through an internationally conceived ‘50×2030 Initiative’, have signed an agreement to, in 10 years, commit the sum of US$500 million towards data gathering to stem agricultural production without a solid information base.

The Initiative is a 10-year, US$500 million multi-agency partnership that seeks to bridge the agricultural data gap by transforming data systems in 50 countries in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America by 2030.

According to a statement issued by the parties on Friday, this is a global multi-institutional collaboration planning a deployment of the multi-million-dollar fund to engender smartness in agricultural development and policy conceptualisation by igniting efficacious and credible data gathering.

The expected gains from the 50×2030 initiative include among others, increased agricultural productivity, enhanced livelihoods and development of informed, smart and virile Agricultural policies. The programme aims to build capacity to enable data-driven policies and decision-making.

The partnership through the 50×2030 Initiative would directly impact 50 countries in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America by 2030. In Nigeria, the mandate for implementing the 50×2030 Initiative is the Agro Climatic Resilience in Semi-Arid Landscapes (ACReSAL) project.

ACReSAL is an agency of the Federal Government supported by the World Bank having a mandate of environmental, agriculture and water resources management.

Through ACreSAL, the federal government strategises, checking the menace of desertification, restoring degraded lands, developing special ecosystems and catalysing sustainable agricultural production in Nigeria’s 19 northern states, as well as the FCT, Abuja. The initiative will help achieve food security, sustainability and climate change by building stronger national agricultural data systems.

Explaining would-be gains in the 50×2030 initiative, the Project Task Team Leader, AGReSAL, Dr. Joy Ighanya Agene, stated that the initiative holds great promises. They include, among others, taming desertification, stemming the shrinking of Lake Chad, obviating the climate change induced pastoral nomadism that keep unleashing farmers – herders clashes and insecurity.

She rued the possibility of the 50×2030 initiative to catalyse the development of a virile Agro Data Bank and its timely release to guide Agricultural and climate experts to guide policy makers in planning Nigeria Agricultural progress.

Addressing a team of strategic experts drawn locally and internationally, Dr Agene, explained the need for contributions from stakeholders who would enliven the initiative.

Thus, ACReSAL has sourced experts locally as the National Bureau of Statistics, the Federal Ministries of Agriculture and Environment and Non-Governmental Organisations.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), the World Bank and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) are to offer technical guidance towards the success of the initiative.

Funding for the 50/2030 initiative is planned to be sustainable. The funding will be sourced through participatory contribution. Governments of the participatory nations have to make available 70 percent of the funding if they are to unlock the remaining 30 percent funding from the developmental partners.

The national data gathering exercise is scheduled to be held between October 2024 and April 2025. The sourced data are planned after analysis, to be ready for use six months after the end of the exercise.

In preparation for the data collection exercise, ACReSAL organised a two day training for all its officers from across the 19 northern states and the Federal Capital Territory and stakeholders between April 24 and 25 2024.

Bennett Oghifo

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