At least, 517 vulnerable persons in the Federal Capital Territory, on Thursday, benefitted from the second batch of FCT FADAMA CARES programme.
The grant is part of the $4.5million World Bank FADAMA CARES programme to allocated to the FCT.
FCT Minister of State, Dr. Ramatu Aliyu, at a symbolic distribution of livestock, fingerlings, fertilizers and other farm implement in Gwagwalada area council, said the initiative is aimed at improving food security and safe functioning of food supply chain in the FCT.
She said the flag-off ceremony of the programme was performed earlier in June this year at Kwali, with a commitment by the FCT Administration to commit ample human and financial resources towards ensuring poverty reduction and improvement of livelihoods for poor and vulnerable agricultural households in the FCT.
“The programme is deliberately designed to support the recovery of livelihood activities of poor and vulnerable persons engaged in agricultural value chains with special consideration to women and unemployed youth.
“Its implementation will be anchored on the World Bank community driven development approach for deployment of programme investments at the community level,” she stressed.
Aliyu further explained that the sum of $4.5 million allocated to the FCT will facilitate the implementation of three Disbursement Linked Indicators, DLIs, out of a total allocation of $15 million made available to the FCTA by the World Bank for implementation of the programme.
She therefore called on the beneficiaries to make judicious use of the grants by supporting their farming activities which would facilitate their recovery from the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
On his part, the FCTA permanent secretary, Mr. Adesola Olusade, stated that the time and resources invested into the FADAMA CARES programme is already yielding tangible results.
He said the positive results could be attested by the excellent result achieved by the FCT during the programme eligibility assessment exercise conducted by the World Bank where the FCT scored 88percent, placing it as the very best performing states in the country.
In his remarks, Secretary Agriculture and Rural Development Secretariat, Malam Abubakar Ibrahim, reiterated that this achievement is another significant milestone in the efforts of the FCT Administration towards supporting the attainment of food and nutritional security in the Federal Capital Territory.
According to him, “This official disbursement of grants to second batch of beneficiaries under FCT FADAMA CARES programme further affirms the unflinching commitment of the FCT Administration towards poverty reduction and improvement of livelihoods for poor and vulnerable agricultural households in the territory.”
The items distributed include fertilizers, seeds and agrochemicals, sprayers and personal protective equipment for crop farmers, day old chicks and feeds for poultry farmers, juveniles and feeds for fish farmers, goats for livestock farmers, grinding machines for women processors and motorized produce threshers for groups of unemployed youths.