UNDP-GEF roll out mid year scorecards for 7 states

Food sufficiency and environmental sustainability are the main objectives of the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and Global Environment Facility (GEF) projects in seven states of the federation.

Mr Muhammad Usman, the National Project Coordinator said the overall report on the project was successful in most of the states, adding “we only have little challenges from one or two states and we hope to address it.’’

He said from the presentation of the reports the project had made a lot of achievements and the only challenges were in terms of counterpart funding  and insecurity that had made the running of the  programme slow.

According to him, the monitoring and evaluation team will  set out in July to inspect the project and use the opportunity to interact with the state government and other government officials to resolve issues as regards funding, flood and security issues.

He said that the issue of security could only be handled by the concerned states, particularly those local government areas where banditry and terrorism had taken over.

Usman said the team would discuss with the state government to see if the project could be relocated from areas where the project was having challenges of insecurity to a more secure area.

He said the essence of the project was to create food security and environmental sustainability for all.

He however appealed to states not performing to scale up, and come up as the project was unwinding and there were lots to be achieved.

Mrs Udumma Nwokike, the UNDP Representative said the overall reports from the presentation were successful but there were institutional challenges and personality issues that had stalled the success of the project in some areas.

According to her, any project that depends on the personality or political personality is bound to fail.

She said there was need to build dependent institutions that would function with or without a particular personality or political interest.

“This type of project should be dynamic in each state that it can function dependently.’’

The Project Manager, Resilient Food Security Project, Mrs Rhoda Dia said the presentation covered all activities carried out and the results achieved in the seven states.

She said some of the challenges include late onset of rainfall that had affected many farm activities in Nasarawa State.

She said lack of fulfilled states government commitment to pay the agreed co-financing by the project state and Federal Government.

Dia said another challenge was the destruction of most agroforestry seedlings by animals in most states and the lack of office space for National Programme Management Unit (NPMU).

She noted that many farmers fled their homes after they participated in the project activities in Jesu and Yadi communities of Gombe State because of insecurity in the area.