Abuja: The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) has called for intensified efforts by governments and other stakeholders in scaling-up water-related infrastructure for sustainable productivity, resilience, and climate adaptation. Mrs. Dede Ekoue, IFAD Country Director, made the call at the Federal Government/IFAD Second Annual Review of the Country Strategic Opportunities Programme (COSOP) 2024 to 2029 in Abuja.
According to News Agency of Nigeria, the COSOP, adopted by the Federal Government, development partners, and other stakeholders in 2024, aims to improve food and nutrition security while addressing the underlying drivers of fragility. The programme is also intended to promote inclusive and resilient growth of Nigeria’s rural economy through a market-driven transformation of the agrifood system. Ekoue emphasized that water infrastructure is critical to productivity, resilience, and climate adaptation, and its scarcity is a major impediment to achieving the COSOP targets set for 2024 to 2029.
Ekoue noted that Nigeria’s agrifood sector faces challenges such as low productivity capacities of smallholders, weak integration into value chains, food insecurity, and malnutrition. Other issues include persistent rural poverty, high dependency on food imports, and multidimensional fragility like conflict, climate, and environmental degradation. She stated that the review presented a timely opportunity to assess progress toward the targets collectively set by stakeholders for 2029.
COSOP was developed following extensive consultations led and coordinated by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security (FMAFS), in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Finance and key national and development partners. The meeting aims to examine the continued relevance of COSOP, assess the progress achieved over the past two years, and identify areas for further improvements and strategic adjustments. Ekoue stressed that this reflective process will enable stakeholders to leverage emerging opportunities and ensure a steady and accelerated pace toward achieving shared objectives, with the portfolio showing strong overall progress toward the 2029 targets.
The country director highlighted one of COSOP’s achievements as sustained support to rural producers’ organizations and their members, which has strengthened collective action and market participation. She mentioned that the annual review of COSOP would help identify ways to enhance these results in 2026. Ekoue also commended the Federal Government of Nigeria for its strong focus on modernizing the agrifood sector through digitalization, including significant progress toward establishing the National Digital Farmer Registry.