….we’re transforming smallholder farming – Ekoue

By Gabriel Ewepu

PORT HARCOURT – AS food production and security take the front burner to fight hunger in Nigeria, 60 stakeholders have resolved to commit in boosting projects by the International Fund for Agricultural Development, IFAD, on climate change, social and environment procedures.

These 60 participants include Project Coordinators, Environment and Climate Change Officers, Irrigation/Civil Engineers and Gender Officers from IFAD projects of LIFE- ND, Value Chain Development Programme (VCDP) and Special Agro-industrial Processing Zones (SAPZ) at the federal and state level, as well staff from Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security Projects Coordinating Unit (PCU), CPAT and Federal Ministry of Finance.

They had their capacity built for greater performance and productivity at a workshop held in two cohorts; 1st cohort training was from 25-28 November, 2024 while the 2nd cohort held from 2nd -5th December, 2024 in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, and was hosted by IFAD- Livelihood Improvement Family Enterprises Project, LIFE-ND.

IFAD in partnership with SUSTAIN International organized a training workshop for IFAD-funded projects to support the effective implementation of Social, Environment and Climate Change Assessment Procedures (SECAP) for the projects.

SECAP is a framework and process IFAD uses to assess the social, environmental, and climate impacts of projects it supports.

The SECAP process helps IFAD ensure its projects meet its social, environmental and climate policies by guiding how to identify potential risks and impacts, and avoid, minimize, reduce, or mitigate them. Social, environmental, and climate sustainability is critical in the achievement of IFAD’s mandate in its portfolio.

The primary aim of the training workshop was to strengthen the capacity of IFAD-funded project staff and stakeholders in Nigeria with a view to improving the quality of SECAP implementation of IFAD-financed projects and programmes.

Meanwhile, the training Programme followed a well-structured approach starting with a hybrid learning where participants engaged with pre-workshop preparation through Moodle, enabling a foundational understanding of SECAP principles before in-person sessions began.

The in-person sessions combined expert presentations with hands-on exercises for comprehensive learning. Participatory methods were deployed using group discussions and collaborative activities which allowed participants to share experiences and insights. Stakeholder engagement strategies were modelled to demonstrate practical application in projects.

After the receipt of the training certificates, participants committed to reviewing and implementing SECAP plans for continuous integration of SECAP principles into their projects. They shared their appreciation to IFAD, SUSTAIN and the workshop facilitators for the quality of the workshop and committed to continuous learning, exchange of experiences, and peer support through formation of the SECAP Community of Practice.

The Country Director, IFAD, Dede Ekoue, in an opening address, pointed out the global relevance of SECAP in IFAD projects, while explaining the importance of the training workshop at this point of implementing IFAD projects.

Ekoue said: “This training workshop is critical for aligning IFAD’s agricultural projects with climate resilience and socio-economic goals.

“Through digital tools like AI-enabled farmer chats and innovations such as solar boreholes and biogas digesters, we are transforming smallholder farming across Nigeria.”

Also, the Director, Projects Coordinating Unit, Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food, Bukar Musa, Director, maintained that government remains committed to climate smart agriculture to upscale food production, and why it should be sustained to mitigate the risks of climate change.

“The government expects this training to enhance environmental sustainability and mitigate the risks of climate change, particularly for vulnerable farming communities.

“The SECAP training workshop was part of Nigeria’s strategic response to the climate crisis, including devastating floods that have affected multiple States”, Musa said.

As the workshop came to a close, the Deputy Director, IER, Federal Ministry of Finance, Babatunde Adebayo, appreciated the fact that it was timely and important for such capacity building workshop, and that the training has really raised awareness within IFAD Project Management Units including the Ministries of Agriculture and Finance on the importance of SECAP and strengthened their capacities for compliance to SECAP.

Meanwhile, the excited participants expressed commitment to ensure they scale down what they have received by passing it across to the grassroots, which they will also extend the training outcomes to state-level decision-makers and farmer organizations to ensure broader application and impact to SECAP.

On the sidelines of the training workshop, during a press conference, a climate change expert and facilitator, IFAD Consultant, Dr Priscilla Achakpa, stressed the need and called for collective action towards tackling the devastating impacts of climate change on food production across the country, while expressing concern over the flood situation and other climate change challenges.

On the lessons learnt during the workshop Achakpa pointed out that it was imperative for stakeholders to have such engagements in order to achieve practical and inclusive interventions based on consistent training, monitoring and evaluation to achieve compliance on the long run.

“The need to address climate change impacts must remain central to agricultural development initiatives.

“Effective project outcomes depend on inclusive and active participation of all stakeholders, including farmer organizations and decision-makers at various levels.”

“The workshop also underscored the importance of integrating social, environmental, and climate standards into agricultural projects to promote resilience and sustainability.

“We need to sustain learning, share best practices, and support ongoing implementation of social and environmental standards”, she said.

Meanwhile, Jenean Pretorius of Centre for Learning on Evaluation and Results in Anglophone Africa, said, “This came on the back of a training of a needs analysis that was done through the IFAD projects, and there was an understanding that there was a need to build capacity for particularly project managers in the implementation of their adherence to CPAT standards. Much of these projects that are high risk in terms of social, environmental impacts.

“So there was an acute need to build capacity to ensure that standards are being adhered to, that there’s an appreciation for local context, for local challenges to be incorporated into the interventions, for an appreciation of inclusion in terms of stakeholder engagements, the kinds of risks that exist, and just better implementation of projects. So there was a vast need for that, not only in Nigeria, but across the continent.”