The Kano State government says that a second phase of the Kano State Agro-pastoral Development Project (KSADP) is justified, considering its achievements in the past five years.
The second phase will likely include certain components of agriculture that were not captured in the first phase of the project, which is jointly financed by the state government, the Islamic Development Bank, and the Lives and Livelihood Funds (LLF).
The state Commissioner for Agriculture, Dr Danjuma Mahmood who gave this indication while receiving a mission comprising officials from the Abuja regional hub of the Islamic Development Bank and the Federal Ministry of Finance, maintained that the government is inspired by the numerous infrastructural achievements done by the project and its remarkable strides in improving access to sustainable livelihoods in the state.
“The impact with regards to poverty alleviation is so deep, so huge. For instance, the project gives a woman a few goats and within a year or less, the number of goats triples. This has real impact in rural homes”, the Commissioner enthused.
Dr. Mahmoud said the state governor treats issues related to the KSADP promptly, to ensure that tangible results are delivered to farmers, assuring that the government will continue to work with the Islamic Development Bank and the LLF, so that Kano continues to benefit from development initiatives.
The leader of the mission, Daniyar Abylkhan, said they were in Kano to work the Project Management Team of the KSADP, on the utilization of savings of the project, its exit strategy as well as the lingering issue of counterpart funding.
Abylkhan said the mission had visited some project sites in the state and have seen how happy the people are with the KSADP interventions.
He noted that the Kano project has become a model to the extent that some states in Nigeria “want the Islamic Development Bank to copy and paste the project in their states literally.”
Credit: Ameen Kabeer Yassar
