The Minister of Environment Balarabe Abbas Lawal has said in order to mitigate and effectively tackle the issue of climate change, food security, Nigeria must focus on getting accurate data from all levels.
He made this known during the official launching of the Agro-climatic Resilience in Semi-Arid Landscapes (ACReSAL) 50×2030 initiatives in Abuja.
The 50×2030 initiatives are one led by a program management team within the World Bank’s Development Data Group. It is a multi-agency partnership that seeks to transform data systems in 50 countries by 2030.
The scarcity of high quality, relevant agricultural data makes it challenging for policy makers to form sound decisions that drive economic growth and reduce poverty.
He said: “50×2030 Initiative is a World Bank and FAO led global agriculture and climate statistics programme working in minimising data gap, building national statistics systems and promoting evidence-informed agriculture in 50 low, lower-middle and middle-income countries around the world by the year 2030.
“In Nigeria, 50×2030 Initiative will work closely with the ACReSAL team, Ministry of Environment, Ministry of Agriculture, and the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).”
Balarabe said the level of hotness that has been emitting for a while now is much and can be subsequently attributed to climate change.
Thus, he urged all relevant stakeholders involved in this initiative to ensure they get accurate data that will help in addressing most of these issues.
In his words: “The importance of data in everything we do can never be down played.” Most especially in agriculture, environment, water and climate change. He explained how data has helped him in increasing its farm products when he was still an active farmer.
Sen. Aliyu Abdullahi, Minister of State for Agriculture and Food Security said that the initiative would unlock the potentials of the agriculture sector and foster economic growth.
Abdullahi who was represented by Mr. Oshadiya Olanipekun, Director, Lands and Climate Management Services in the ministry said that food security is imminent in the country through the use of data-smart agriculture.
Earlier, the Chief Executive Officer of National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), Prince. Yemi Adenira appreciated the opportunity that has been given to the bureau in leading the charge of getting these data available.
“50×2030 initiatives as we know it have to do with agricultural data for the country. I want to say that this project is going to revolutionaries’ agricultural data for us in Nigeria.
“We are going to have data consistently available for the next five years. In any aspect of agriculture, we will be able to provide indicators. We are not only going to be looking at production in agriculture such as crops, livestock, fishery, forestry but we are also going to be having data on climate change, environment, water availability amongst others,” he added.
The National Project Coordinator for the ACReSAL, Mr. Abdulhamid Umar said the 50×2030 will provide strength and capacity for the 50 World Bank nations to capture and gather reliable data from the agriculture sector. The data to be collected he said will be used by decision makers to enhance food productivity.
He added that in Nigeria, ACReSAL was identified as a veritable platform to reach out to the nineteen northern states and FCT to capture reliable data from farmers and what they produce.
The Community Revolving Fund Deliverable arm of ACReSAL, according to him, aims to strengthen citizens at the grassroots level. “The funds are made available to residents at the community level wherein they will be empowered to be able to enhance agricultural and other livelihood activities at the household level”, he said.
Vinay Vutukuru, Social Development Leader, World Bank said that the project would address the impacts of climate change and food insecurity in Nigeria through data-smart agriculture.
Senior Economist and the 50×2030 Program Lead Strategy, Abul Azad said the project is a global statistics and climate change program that aims to work on minimising climate change data dearth by 2030.
“Our target is to work with 50 countries and strengthen the use of data for policy making and promote evidence smart agriculture, Mr. Azad said.
“It takes advantage of World Bank’s resources to implement agriculture climate programs and the technical assistance also comes from the World Bank and FAO.
“ACReSAL is a World Bank investment to strengthen a sustainable and climate resilient landscape management in Nigeria. So, our contribution is through technical assistance and capacity building for the National Bureau of Statistics and the three presiding ministries to use data for policy making”, he added.
Mr. Koffy Dominque, FAO Representative in Nigeria and to ECOWAS said that 50×2030 Survey is aimed at bridging the agricultural data gap.
Dominque said it will also build strong national data systems that will produce and use high quality, timely agricultural survey data in Nigeria.
Dominque who was represented by Tofiq Braimah said that FAO is committed to continue this effort to make sure adequate capacity is built at national level to sustain the production of agricultural statistics in Nigeria.
“This effort will be designed in such a way that National Bureau of Statistics and the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security will be in the driving seat of this data production to ensure that technical assistance provided in this 50×2030 initiative is sustained.
“With this collaboration, data on core agricultural variables as well as income and labour productivity, production methods and environment as well as use of machineries and equipment will be collected to regularly avail data on agriculture.
“Once again, FAO in collaboration with the World Bank team, is on board to assist the NBS and Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security in implementing the 50×2030 approach to have an annual agricultural survey in Nigeria for the next five years,” he said.
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