Background
The Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) has secured a facility from the African Development Bank (AfDB), International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), and Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) to implement a five-year AfDB/IFAD/IsDB-Assisted Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zone (SAPZ) Program in partnership with the State Governments and Private Investors in seven (7) participating States (Imo, Kaduna, Cross River, Kano, Kwara, Oyo, and Ogun) and Federal Capital Territory (FCT) 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 Food Security (FMAFS) 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 two building blocks which include 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 Centres are being coordinated.
The SAPZ Program goal is to increase household incomes, foster job creation in rural agricultural communities, especially for youth and women, and enhance food and nutritional security in Nigeria. The development objective is to support inclusive and sustainable agro-industrial development. The specific objective of the SAPZ program is to increase the competitiveness and business environment of the Nigerian agriculture sector, through the provision of hard and soft infrastructure that would allow the crowding-in of private investment into the sector, both at the upstream and downstream axes of the value chains.
Target Groups
AfDB investments will target the development of 5 Agro-Industrial Hubs (AIHs) in the AfDB supported states of Cross-River, Imo, Kaduna, Ogun and Oyo to attract private sector investment. The Bank will also finance the development of 5 Agricultural Transformation Centres (ATCs) in the states under its support. Value chain actors and Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in the catchment areas to the ATCs will be supported to enhance their production skills and capacity and ensure adequate production surplus of produce to feed the industrial hubs.
One of the expected outcome of AfDB support to SAPZ is to create 100,000 direct and 400,000 indirect jobs, corresponding to a total of 500,000jobs within the locations of the Agro-Industrial Hubs, Agricultural Transformation Centres (ATCs) and Aggregation Centres (ACs).
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