Five state governors in the country have endorsed a Peer Advisory Mechanism (PAM) to enable them monitor the implementation of their home grown agricultural policies targeted at attaining zero hunger in Nigeria.
The PAM is a brainchild of the Nigeria Zero Hunger Forum (NZHF) that is aimed at reviewing, monitoring, and advising states in Nigeria on ways and means by which states can use available resources to achieve zero hunger by 2030.
The five pilot states which have given their endorsements are Benue, Borno, Ebonyi, Ogun and Sokoto state.
“More states will be involved as we make progress,” said Olusegun Obasanjo goodwill ambassador to the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and former Nigerian president, who chair the NZHF in a press statement made available to BusinessDay.
According to a communiqué issued at the end of the maiden edition of the NZHF in Makurdi, members of the NZHF which cut across the private sector, government and development partners agreed to hold its advisory meetings on quarterly basis across the states.
Kenton Dashiell, deputy director general for partnerships and delivery, IITA who also manages the secretariat of the NZHF at IITA, explained that the peer advisory mechanism of the NZHF would encourage states to keep focus to the commitment they made towards agriculture so they could by themselves achieve their set targets.
He commended the maiden meeting in Benue state, noting that the state has the capacity to feed the country if its agricultural potential was fully tapped.
Samuel Ortom, Governor of Benue State, described the Nigeria Zero Hunger initiative as a tool that would accelerate the agricultural development of states through peer learning.
He noted that through the instrumentality of the Forum the state was able to purchase fertilizers in good time for distribution to farmers.
“Again from the NZHF meeting, we have been given advice on how to handle certain areas,” Ortom said.
The forum adopted a template for its future advisory meetings that would involve presentations of what is going on in the host state related to achieving zero hunger (challenges, successes, and lessons learnt), also go on field visits to engage with large, medium, and small scale farmer groups.
The NZHF is supported by IITA, African Development Bank (AfDB), WFP and the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library (OOPL).
Josephine Okojie
