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Showing posts with label 000. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 000. Show all posts

Saturday, July 15, 2023

Food shortage: Igbajo community embraces FG 500,000 hectares farmland policy - NaijaAgroNet

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The Igbajo Community in Osun State has embraced the Federal Government’s agriculture revolution policy geared at cultivating 500 hectares of farmland to tackle food shortages in the country.
Food shortage: Igbajo community embraces FG 500,000 hectares farmland policy - NaijaAgroNet
The presidency recently disclosed that 500,000 hectares of land have already been mapped to increase the availability of arable land for farming, having declared a state of emergency on food security in Nigeria.

Monday, January 1, 2018

Over 20,000 babies born on New Year’s Day in Nigeria - UNICEF

About 20,210 babies were born in Nigeria on the New Year’s Day, so says the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF), reports NaijaAgroNet.

Also, UNICEF challenges nations around the world to make sure more newborns survive their first days of life, stressing that Kiribati’s Christmas Island, a small island in the Pacific, will most likely welcome 2018’s first baby; the United States, its last.

Globally, over half of these births are estimated to take place in nine countries including Nigeria -20,210; India - 69,070, China — 44,760, Pakistan — 14,910, Indonesia — 13,370, United States of America — 11,280, Democratic Republic of Congo — 9,400, Ethiopia — 9,020 and Bangladesh — 8,370.

While many babies will survive, some will not make it past their first day. In 2016, an estimated 2,600 children died every day of the year, on the day they were born. For almost 2 million newborns, their first week was also their last. In all, 2.6 million children died before the end of their first month. Among those children, more than 80 per cent of all newborn deaths are due to preventable and treatable causes such as premature birth, complications during delivery, and infections like sepsis and pneumonia.

 “This New Year, UNICEF’s global resolution is to help give every child more than an hour, more than a day, more than a month - more than survival,” said Terry Durnnian, Acting Representative of UNICEF Nigeria. “We call on the government and partners to join the fight to save the lives of millions children by providing proven, low-cost solutions.”

Over the past two decades, the world has seen unprecedented progress in child survival, halving the number of children worldwide who die before their fifth birthday to 5.6 million in 2016. But despite these advances, there has been slower progress for newborns. Babies dying in the first month account for 46 per cent of all deaths among children under five.

Next month, UNICEF will launch Every Child Alive, a global campaign to demand and deliver affordable, quality health care solutions for every mother and newborn. These include a steady supply of clean water and electricity at health facilities, the presence of a skilled health attendant during birth, disinfecting the umbilical cord, breastfeeding within the first hour after birth, and skin-to-skin contact between the mother and child.


 “We are now entering the era when the entire world’s newborns should have the opportunity to see the 22nd Century. Unfortunately, nearly half of the children born this year likely won’t. A child born in Sweden in January 2018 is most likely to live to 2100, while a child from Nigeria would be unlikely to live beyond year 2072,” Durnnian said.

Isaac Oyimah/GEE

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Sunday, November 26, 2017

Access Power, FMO open submission for $100,000 solar ‘Shark Tank’ Competition

The Dutch development bank, FMO and Access Power, a leading developer, owner and operator of power projects in emerging markets, have jointly launched the 2018 FMO Access Power Solar 'Shark Tank' Competition, seeking submissions for a solar projects, while dangling US$100,000 grant, reports NaijaAgroNet.

The call for 2018 submission follows the successful completion of the first installment in 2016 at the ‘Making Solar Bankable’ conference. The initiative is aimed at helping local solar power developers that require development support to make their innovative solar projects more impactful.

To be considered for the grant, NaijaAgroNet gathered that the proposed projects must be located in Asia, Africa or Latin America and be based on solar PV technology, in addition to meeting the capacity criterion of 10MW or more, and be at an advanced stage of development. Further, eligible projects should have an innovative or impactful angle to the project that could be developed with support of the grant.

Proposals, NaijaAgroNet also reports, will be screened and scored by a pre-selection committee assembled by FMO and Access Power, while the top four shortlisted will be invited to present their projects and answer questions from a panel of judges in front of a live audience on the 15th of February 2018 during the second edition of the 'Making Solar Bankable' conference, co-organized by FMO and Solarplaza in Amsterdam, Netherlands on 15 and 16 February.


“The winning project will be announced at the end of the session during the event,” the organisers disclosed, adding that the winner will receive a $100,000 grant towards the development costs of their project from FMO and Access Power.

Isaac Oyimah/ED, Ops 
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Saturday, January 21, 2017

Food for All: MaxMart lifts Afram Plains South District with GhC5,000

Ghana’s premier family shopping centre, MaxMart has listed  the Afram Plains South District of the Eastern region of Ghana with a donation of GH¢5,000 to Food for All Ghana Sustainable Farms Fund as initial capital to build a community livestock farm for deprived communities reports NaijaAgroNet.

Receiving the cheque from General Manager of MaxMart , Mr. Omar Naboulsi, the founder of Food for All Africa programme, Chef Elijah Addo, reiterated the need for community partnership towards addressing hunger and food waste in Africa.

He also said the donation was as a result of a month long Waitrose Buy More Feed More Christmas project carried out by Food for All and MaxMart to raise awareness on the economic and environmental impact of food waste and hunger in Ghana.

“It was to also involve Ghanaians and stakeholders in creating sustainable means of nutrition for beneficiaries under the Food for All Africa programme. Through the month of Christmas, MaxMart donated 3% of Waitrose branded product prices for which it’s customers bought,” he said.

He quoted facts from the 2016 Cost of Hunger in Ghana report published in August by National Development Planning Commission which shows that Ghana loses GH¢ 4.6 billion which is equivalent to 6.4% GDP annually to hunger among children and 24% of all child mortality cases in Ghana are associated with under nutrition.” 

He indicated that the choice of Afram plains for the community farm project was as a result of the number of children in the community who are out of school due to a lack of regular means of nutrition.He appealed for individuals and corporate bodies to donate to the Food for All Ghana Sustainable Farms Fund to create sustainable means of nutrition for vulnerable communities in Africa.”

Also speaking, Naboulsi indicated MaxMart believes community participation plays a critical role in solving the economic and environmental impact of food waste and hunger in Ghana. It is in that regard that as sole distributors of Waitrose brand in Ghana, they involved their customers during Christmas to raise funding in support of the good work Food for All in undertaking to ensure a means of nutrition for the vulnerable in Ghana.”MaxMart is a socially responsible business and will keep supporting social intervention programs such as Food for All in Ghana.

Isaac Oyimah/GEE
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Saturday, October 15, 2016

Lack of hand washing, kills over 300,000 in 2015 – UNICEF

The spate of cholera in aftermath of Hurricane Matthew in Haiti and with a new outbreak of war-in Yemen, have made it difficult for children, families and communities to make washing hands with soap a habit to help prevent the spread of diseases, says United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF), reports NaijaAgroNet.

This is coming as UNICEF said over 300,000 lives should have been saved if hand washing has become a habit globally.

Chief of Communication for UNICEF Nigeria, Ms Doune Porter, told NaijaAgroNet that as the world celebrate the Global Handwashing Day, UNICEF has discovered that, in 2015 alone, over 300,000 children under the age of five died globally from diarrhoeal infections linked to poor access to safe drinking water and sanitation – a rate of over 800 per day.

“Yet many of these deaths could have been prevented through the simple act of handwashing with soap,” she said.

Porter quoted the UNICEF’s global head of water, sanitation and hygiene Sanjay Wijesekera as saying that every year, 1.4 million children are dying from largely preventable diseases like pneumonia and diarrhea.

“These are staggering numbers, but they could be greatly reduced by working with children and families to adopt a very straightforward solution – handwashing. We know, for example, that handwashing with soap before meals and after using the toilet could reduce the incidence of diarrhoeal infections by 40 per cent,” Sanjay said.

In addition, NaijaAgroNet gathered that a recent survey conducted by UNICEF in Nigeria found that about 10 per cent of households did not know about the critical times to wash hands and could not demonstrate proper handwashing techniques.


The survey, Porter further said revealed that only 12 per cent of households have handwashing facilities with soap or ash located at their latrines.

Isaac Oyimah/GEE
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Sunday, January 26, 2014

FADAMA boosts 40,000 farmers in Anambra


Over 40,000 farmers have benefited from the FADAMA III intervention in Anambra, just as they have increased saves by 70 per cent, according to the Project Coordinator, Mr. Emmanuel Muofunanya, reports NaijaAgroNet.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) report made available to correspondent, indicates that Mr. Muofunanya in Awka said that the programme also disbursed in excess of N600 million to 870 groups between 2009 and 2013.

The farmers, he said, witnessed an increase in their average income from N45,000 in 2009 to N80,000 in 2013, stressing that a survey conduct by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in the state revealed that the beneficiaries had improved their savings and income by 70 per cent.

“The farmers have done well in Fadama Users Equity Fund, where farmers are encouraged to save 10 per cent of their income to sustain their projects as well as in technology adoption.

Emphasising that the project development objective has been to increase the income and livelihood of beneficiaries and in that regard, the project has done well, insisting that irrigation had remained a serious challenge to achieve more successes in the state.

Isaac Oyimah/GEE/NAN
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