The UK government has launched a £95m climate change programme in Nigeria, aimed at helping more than 4 million people adopt sustainable agricultural practices.
The programme, called Propcom+, will be implemented by The Palladium Group and will focus on five key areas:
Increasing productivity of smallholder farmers
Improving nutrition and food security
Enhancing climate resilience
Pursuing lower emissions
Protecting and restoring nature.
The programme will have initial focal states in Kano, Jigawa, Kaduna, Edo, and Cross River, and will also work in some Southern Nigerian states to address issues around deforestation.
Speaking at the launch, British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Richard Montgomery, said: “Tackling the effects of climate change and lowering emissions is a key priority for the UK government and we remain committed to building sustainable pro-poor climate-resilient growth in Nigeria through the new Propcom+ programme which will address environmental, social and economic challenges in the country’s food and land-use systems.”
Propcom+’s Political Director and Country Representative, Adiya V. Ode, said: “Propcom+ will work as a market facilitator to identify constraints in market systems and will implement interventions through three broad-based inter-linked pillars. Pillar one will scale-up a focused basket of proven climate-smart interventions around agriculture and primary processing/storage practices/models for adoption by millions of poor and vulnerable smallholder farmers and small-scale entrepreneurs using a market systems approach.
“Pillar two will build, pilot and scale new business models that improve productivity, enhance resilience to climate change, reduce emission and improve nutrition outcomes and Pillar three will seek to support a strengthened enabling environment for sustainable food and land-use systems through enabling policies.”
The new Propcom+ programme reinforces the UK Government’s commitment to working with the Government of Nigeria to increase the depth of investment in the agricultural sector, this time, helping the vulnerable to build resilience and adapt to the effects of climate change.
