FAO’s contribution to the end of poverty and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), leads international efforts to defeat hunger. Achieving food security for all is at the heart of FAO’s efforts to make sure people have regular access to enough high-quality food to lead active, healthy lives.

FAO Special Programme for Food Security in Nigeria
Within the context of the FAO’s Mandate and the Millennium Development Goal to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, FAO in May 2000 signed an agreement for a Unilateral Trust Fund project in support of the National Programme for Food Security (NPFS) in Nigeria. The Government of Nigeria decided to implement the Special Programme for Food Security with its own human and financial resources (US$45 million), whereas FAO provides technical support on demand to the Government.

The programme's many projects include activities aimed at improving household food security through: water control, (such as on-farm irrigation and capacity building in gender and water management) crop intensification and diversification, soil fertility improvement; aquaculture and inland fisheries, animal disease and transboundary pest control, and marketing of agricultural commodities.

The Project Coordination Unit in the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development was charged with the important task of launching field activities in all 36 Nigerian states and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, directly involving a total of 109 sites and 30,000 families. In March 2003, China, Nigeria and FAO signed a four-year South-South Cooperation agreement, with funding provided entirely by the Government of Nigeria (US$22.7 million). The Government of China provided some 20 experts and more than 500 field technicians with expertise in various fields of agriculture to assist in the building and rehabilitation of small-scale water control infrastructures, including the construction of dams and other agriculture related technology transfer activities.
The NPFS played a central role in achieving the Government's agricultural policy goals of boosting agricultural production for certain priority crops and commodities such as rice, cassava, yam, maize, sorghum, millet, cowpea, fruits and vegetables.

The programme's successful results substantially improved food security and productivity especially in marginal areas and prompted the government to formulate and implement an expansion phase that will triple the number of project sites to 327 during the next 5 years, starting in 2007. In total, the expansion phase is expected to reach six million beneficiaries.

The estimated budget for the expansion phase of the National Programme for Food Security that will cover five-year period (2007-2011), amounts to a staggering US$ 364 million, one of the largest programmes of this sort. Funding would be obtained from different sources, with the Government of Nigeria bearing approximately 60% of the cost, complemented by, the African Development Bank, the Islamic Bank for African Development, the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa and two National Commercial Banks, etc.

Contact for media: Mr.Rabe Isa Mani, Assistant Representative (Programme), Tel: 08033326855, 08052273578,
Ms. Adeola Akinrinlola, Programme Assistant, 08037268319, 09-4618744 e-mail address: FAO-NG@fao.org
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