1.0 BACKGROUND
The Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) has secured a facility from the African Development Bank (AfDB) to implement a five-year FGN/AfDB – Assisted Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zone (SAPZ) Program in partnership with the State Governments and Private Investors in four (4) participating states of Kaduna, Oyo, Cross River and Imo states in the first phase.
The implementation of SAPZs is a major investment program of the Federal Government of Nigeria, driven by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD) in collaboration with relevant Federal Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) to develop agro-processing clusters in areas of high agricultural production across the country. It is a strategic move to rapidly develop modern agro processing capacity to serve the vast and growing local market, create sustainable market for farmers and reduce postharvest losses of local agricultural produce and thereby create wealth for farmers, promote import substitution and create sustainable agriculture related jobs.
This clustering approach is to help address investment challenges in the development of agro-processing enclaves across Nigeria, including poor access to quality infrastructure, inadequate feedstock supplies and other challenges confronting agro-processing environment. SAPZs, therefore, will be developed with requisite infrastructure for agro processing environment which will help reduce cost absorptions and engender competitiveness in agro-industrial production that is critical to further unlocking the potentials of Nigeria’s Agriculture to create ready markets and wealth for farming communities and reduce rural poverty.
The SAPZ is made up of the Agricultural Transformation Centre (ATC) which is a community-based rural institution within the host community, supported with provision of quality production drivers for the production of feedstock and the Aggregation Centre (AC) for primary storage and the Agro-Industrial Hub (AIH) equipped with desirable infrastructure to create modern agro-processing environment where secondary value addition will take place. The agro-industrial Processing hub (AIH) will draw its processing feedstock from the ATC where activities of the production clusters and Aggregation Centers are being coordinated.
The development objective of the SAPZ Project is to support inclusive and sustainable agro-industrial development in Nigeria and it will be implemented through four complementary and mutually reinforcing components as follows:
Please, download the complete Terms of Reference (TOR) and read the components
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