NITDA DG: FG to save N4.5bn on content management - NaijaAgroNet

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The Director General, National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Kashifu Inuwa has said the implementation of the service-wide Enterprise Content Management (ECM) solution, organized by the Office of Head of Civil Service of the Federation, will result in an annual saving of about N4.5 billion in Nigeria, reports NaijaAgroNet.

Inuwa, who was represented by the Director, Information Technology Infrastructure Solutions (ITIS) Dr. Usman Gambo Abdullahi disclosed this while presenting a paper at the one-day ECM Service-Wide Round Table Workshop on ECM implementation with the topic "The Modalities of Software Clearance on ECM Solution for MDAs" at the Rotunda Hall, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Abuja.

FAO DG hails partnership potential with civil society -NaijaAgroNet

NaijaAgroNet:

Multiple level partnerships have been described as critical to achieving a world without hunger, FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu said Saturday at a meeting with leading exponents of civil society and indigenous peoples representing small scale food producers and family farmers.

"We need all of civil society to play an active role", the Director-General said in wide-ranging remarks underscoring the need to improve global food systems. "FAO is here to help you."

He addressed the annual Forum of the Civil Society and Indigenous Peoples' Mechanism (CSM), a vehicle for the participation of non-governmental actors in policy formulation at the Committee on World Food Security (CFS), itself a multistakeholder platform. Today's event focused on how to strengthen commitments to achieving Sustainable Development Goal 2, also known as Zero Hunger.

A cornerstone of effective action means making sure "family farmers are the final beneficiaries," Qu added, noting that the UN Decade of Family Farming  offers a great opportunity to implement and leverage ideas and recommendations made by CFS.

He emphasized the importance of learning and working together for concrete solutions with "interaction, brainstorming and open minds." In this context, digital solutions can play a decisive role in improving the livelihoods of small scale and vulnerable food producers, particularly in relation to the impacts of climate change, according to the Director-General.

Qu also emphasized that FAO would pioneer youth and women engagement initiatives at all levels and highlighted the positive way that FAO's Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS) helps generate economic value, knowledge and rural-development solutions.

"We need to defeat hunger and poverty, which are inextricably linked," said CFS Chair Mario Arvelo. "We need to use every tool in the toolbox, as the Director-General said."

CFS itself needs to continually expand its inclusiveness, Arvelo said.

The CSM is a self-organized body designed to give smallholder family farmers, non-governmental organizations, Indigenous Peoples, fisherfolks, herders, youth, consumers and other global citizens a voice in the work of the upcoming session of CFS, which starts on 14 October and lasts throughout the week.

The CSM's main message to the upcoming CFS session, which starts on Monday 15 October, is that "the possibility of attaining zero hunger is becoming more and more unlikely" and that policy initiatives need not just to be accelerated but to change direction.

The group noted with approval CFS progress in thematic areas such youth employment in agriculture and food systems and reiterated its priorities in the ongoing process of developing Voluntary Guidelines on Food Systems and Nutrition, an exercise expected to be completed in 2020.

Among the panelists alongside FAO's Director-General at Saturday's event were Silvia Dywilli from the World March of Women, Nettie Wiebe of La Via Campesina, Azra Sayeed of the International Women's Alliance and Musa Sowe of ROPPA, organizations representing a broad array of global regions.

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NAFDAC returns to Ports, borders for effective regulation - DG

NaijaAgroNet: 

The Director General of the National Agency for Food andDrug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Professor Christianah Mojisola Adeyeye, has assured Nigerians that the return of the agency to the nation’s ports and borders will enhance the regulation of importation of narcotic drugs and hazardous chemical substances, reports NaijaAgroNet.

This, she also said, would boost up the regulation of hazardous substances identified to be grossly abused and consequently, posing public health and security threats to the country.

A communique issued at the end of the National Chemical Security Training Conference in Abuja and held under the auspices of the Officeof the National Security Adviser (ONSA) and made available to NaijaAgroNet, with the theme “Towards a Secured Importation, Distribution, Storage and Use of Chemicals in Nigeria.”

NAFDAC DG noted that the return to ports and borders will once again, restore NAFDAC’s key responsibility of monitoring imports of controlled drugs and chemical substances which come in various forms, thus requiring expertise to monitor their industry-wide application and use.

The agency commended ONSA, the Chemical Society of Nigeria and other key stakeholders for recognizing NAFDAC as a key player in the national security architecture by this singular act of restoring the presence of NAFDAC officials at all designated Ports of entry and land borders.

She recalled that the laws establishing NAFDAC empowered the agency to statutorily operate at the ports. 

“The clearance of regulated products outside of the current legal framework poses immediate and life threatening risks to the public as unregistered, spurious and falsified products exit the ports without recourse to the agency’s approval for such products to be in the market,” she said.

Prof. Adeyeye further assured members of the public that NAFDAC will continue to contribute its quota to government’s efforts in securing lives and property by ensuring that only quality, safe, efficacious and wholesome regulated products and are consumed by Nigerians and smuggling of chemical weapons, harmful drugs and substances into the country is checked.

 
Isaac Oyimah/GEE

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