NANTS, ECOWAS boost FCT with milk factory - NaijaAgroNet

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The National Association of Nigerian Traders (NANTS) in partnership with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) have boosted the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) with the siting of milk production factory in Giri Community of the Gwagwalada Area Council, reports NaijaAgroNet.

This followed the formal performing of the ground breaking of the factory on Friday, September 23, this year.

Northern States Governors, GE partner to boost healthcare

ITRealms:

The Northern States Governors Forum (NSGF) has selected GE Healthcare, a leading global provider of transformational medical technologies and services, as a long-term partner to revitalize healthcare infrastructure in the Northern States, with the signing of a one-of-a-kind strategic partnership agreement at the weekend in Abuja, reports ITRealms.

The framework agreement, ITRealms gathered was designed to bring GE’s global capabilities in improving health system and patient outcomes across the globe, NSFG and GE will explore several areas for collaboration across primary, secondary and tertiary care facilities including: the establishment of new diagnostic medical centres; primary and referral care offerings such as relevant technologies to modernize health clinics; training and skills development for health workers and operations and evaluation support.

ITRealms also gathered that the deal was in line with the 2016 Federal National Health Policy and reflecting NSGF’s mandate to accelerate sustainable healthcare across the nineteen Northern States, the alliance will explore a range of public-private partnership models.

Speaking at the signing, Borno State Governor and Head of NSGF, Governor Kashim Shettima said, “Today, we execute the framework agreement between the Northern States Governors Forum and GE for the transformation of the healthcare sector in northern Nigeria. We are proud to have a partner like GE, a leader in the healthcare space and we look forward to reaping the benefits of this partnership soon. We appreciate GE’s commitment to increasing accessibility and affordability of healthcare in Nigeria”.

Eyong Ebai, General Manager for GE Healthcare in West & Central Africa said, “We are delighted to partner with the Northern States Governors Forum on this landmark agreement that sets the path towards a range of efforts that will contribute towards the attainment of universal healthcare coverage in Northern Nigeria. Over the past five years, GE Healthcare has executed on its localization strategy by building a strong local footprint, capacity building and several initiatives to help healthcare providers in delivering better, more holistic healthcare for the people of Nigeria. We look forward to delivering on the next stage of our growth plans in Nigeria.”

With over 40 years in Nigeria, GE is focused on partnering with public and private health providers to increase access to affordable and quality healthcare. In 2012, GE Healthcare and the Nigerian Ministry of Health signed a 5-year agreement for the government to leverage GE’s technologies, solutions and domain expertise to help upgrade the country’s medical facilities and contribute towards health infrastructure modernization. In line with the Sustainable Development Goals, GE remains firmly committed to deepening these collaborations to strengthen Nigeria’s health system.

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ECOWAS gets $1bn Israeli solar energy boost

NaijaAgroNet:

An Israeli renewable energy company, Energiya Global and the USAID Power Africa Initiative have collaborated to boost the electricity power supply in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) with some $1billion solar commitment, reports NaijaAgroNet.

This is coming as a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed Friday between the State of Israel and ECOWAS, Israel’s leading solar developer to invest $1 billion over the next four years to advance green energy power projects across the 15 member states of the West African economic community.

“In honor of President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s two terms in office, and Liberia’s friendship with the State of Israel, Energiya Global and our international partners will finance and build a commercial-scale solar field at the Roberts International Airport, which will supply 25 per cent of the country’s generation capacity,” says Yosef I. Abramowitz, CEO.  “We are prepared to finance and build the first National Demonstration Solar Projects in all ECOWAS-affiliated countries in order to promote political stability and social and economic development, as well as to advance knowledge transfer.”

Energiya Global and its associated companies developed the first commercial scale solar field in sub-Sahara Africa in Rwanda, which is supplying 6 per cent of the country’s power, and the group broke ground on a similar power plant in Burundi, which will supply 15 per cent of the country’s power by the end of the year.  The solar group has fields at various stages of development in ten African countries and expects to announce its full program at the Israel-Africa Summit in Togo at the end of October.

In an historic first, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is scheduled today to address the 15 West African heads of state of ECOWAS, as well as the head of the African Union. “Israel is coming back to Africa,” the Prime Minister will announce, and will outline the technological innovations in agriculture, water, green energy and more that can support economic development in West Africa. 

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Public, Private Partnership to boost African healthcare indicators

NaijaAgroNet:

The chairman of the African Healthcare Federation, Dr Amit Thakker, has said that increased spending on healthcare in the public and private sectors across the African continent have resulted in improved health indicators and life expectancies, reports NaijaAgroNet.

Thakker, a speaker at the Africa Health Exhibition & Congress noted that the progress of this improvement is extremely slow and not commensurate with the increase in funding.

Also Thakker pointed out that the private healthcare sector,  as well as non-government organisations (NGOs) are well placed to help improve healthcare across the continent, and while there have been Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs), stressing, these need to be stepped up if Africa wants to beat its healthcare challenges.

According to Thakker, these poor outcomes reflect challenges with governance and leadership, while noting that budget allocations in a number of African countries are relatively large, but unfortunately inefficiencies reduce their impact substantially.

“We would have saved twice as many children and women if governments were efficient,” Thakker declared.

Leader of Deloitte Digital Africa, and leader for Healthcare and Life Sciences, Valter Adão says “Healthcare spend is often sizeable in dollar terms but low relative to GDP, like in Nigeria, or reasonably comparable to European countries but the outcomes are poor, like in South Africa.”

“The deviation from the traditional PPP models is that governments would not be the recipients, but owners or implementers and perhaps even the investors into these solutions,” Adão recently told the World Economic Forum.

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Senegal receives $50m to boost agro-nutrition

NaijaAgroNet:

The West African country of Senegal, has received support worth $50 million, to boost government management of key sectors including agriculture and nutrition, reports NaijaAgroNet.

Disclosing this Tuesday, during her official visit to Senegal in West Africa, the Canadian Minister of International Development and La Francophonie, Marie-Claude Bibeau, said the $50 million comes in as budgetary assistance to enable the Senegalese government to enhance its public financial management and governance.

She also said that empowering women would propel them to reply on their presence in all spheres of the society.

Bibeau, equally said, that women’s empowerment is crucial for development, particularly in Senegal, underscoring the fact that authorizing women would encourage them to reply on their presence in all spheres of the society.

“I am determined to ensuring that Canada’s international aid resources go first and foremost toward giving women the means to contribute fully to the development of their communities,” she said, adding that Canada would spend $112.6 million to fund four development projects and initiatives in Senegal.

Funding of $19.6 million over five years (2016 to 2021) will go to the International Development Research Centre to support the work being done by the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences, particularly in Senegal.

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IFNA debuts @ TICAD 2016 to boost nutrition security in Africa

NaijaAgroNet:

The Sixth Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD VI) Summit ended in the city of Nairobi, Kenya at the weekend, with the launch of the Initiative for Food and Nutrition Security in Africa (IFNA) to boost nutrition in Africa, reports NaijaAgroNet.

The event which held at Sarova Panafric Hotel "Simba" on Saturday, August 27, 2016 was part of the sideline event for the two-day TICAD VI which took place at Kenyatta International Convention Center in Nairobi, as part of the inaugural TICAD meeting in Africa since its inception in 1993 and launched by the Japan government.

IFNA, NaijaAgroNet gathered, is cohosted by the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) on the background of the Malabo Declaration and Sustainable Development Goal 2 that aspires to end hunger and improve the nutrition status in the world and particularly in Africa under the Japan JICA is pleased to propose that a new framework be established, called "Initiative for Food and Nutrition Security in Africa (IFNA)" to accelerate the international efforts to alleviate hunger and malnutrition on the African continent.

According to Shuto Megumi of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), IFNA emphasizes the importance of several specific values which focuses on facilitating people-centered and practical activities, through empowerment of women, as well as action-oriented policy enhancement, in order to achieve inclusive nutritional improvement with an impact.

Megumi also said IFNA underscores synergistic outcomes among multi-sectorial activities such as agriculture, health, education, and private sectors, stressing the importance of an evidence-based approach to support policymakers to make decisions based on proper monitoring and evaluation.

“It also emphasizes an appropriate coordination between short-term humanitarian interventions and mid-long-term development interventions in order to enhance sustainability and resilience of communities in the African region,” JICA official said.

While the objectives include serving as a new initiative for Food and Nutrition Security in Africa (IFNA), at the same time, consider how international community can accelerate efforts to alleviate hunger and malnutrition on the African continent.

NaijaAgroNet further gathered that some of the lead speakers at the inauguration of IFNA include JICA president, Dr. Shinichi Kitaoka, Chief Executive Officer, NEPAD Agency Dr. Ibrahim Mayaki, Director General, Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) Dr. José Graziano da Silva, President of International Fund for Agricultural Development, Dr. Nwanze F. Kanayo, Assistant Executive Director, World Food Programme (WFP) Ms. Elisabeth Rasmusson, Deputy Executive Director, UNICEF, Dr. Omar Abdi, Director for Africa at the World Health Organisation (WHO) Dr. Matshidiso Rebecca Moeti, and Director of Nutrition, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Mr. Shawn Baker among others.

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African media urged to leverage WBG’s 9,000 open data to boost good governance

NaijaAgroNet:

Africa media practitioners have been urged to leverage on the World Bank’s estimated 9,000 open data on agriculture, so as to give drive to good governance, reports NaijaAgroNet.

Making this call recently at a 3-day workshop on reporting agriculture hosted by the Africa Media Initiative (AMI) in conjunction with the World Bank in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, the Lead Operations Officer, World Bank Institute’s Global Media Development programme, Mr. Craig Hammer advised participants to explore the power of open data to improve the state of content on agriculture and other sectors of the economy.

He disclosed that World Bank Group, for instance, has over 9,000 development indicators opened including data on health, nutrition, population, gender, poverty and equity, jobs, climate change to name a few.

“There are microdata on 650,000 variables from 1,200 surveys in addition to over 150,000 analyses, reports,” he said.

According to him by leveraging open data, media practitioners on the continent will spur good governance because open data has evidence to drive its story or information.

Hammer, whose presentation was on ‘Data-Driven Journalism Media,’ defined data as information that has been translated into a form that is more convenient to analyze, pointing out that nowadays, the world thrives on three distinct avenues, more so for media practitioners, comprising having access to information and open data, finding agriculture data with today’s relevance.

Showcasing where media fits in open data usage in what he described as information circle, Hammer described media as a watchdog that discloses to the public in real time relevant infomation; microscope which helps to simplify technical governance information thereby promoting accessibility by the public and facilitate engagement.

He also said that by way of media being a megaphone, it helps with the dissemination of now accessible governance information through various channels available to practitioners.

Equally, Hammer said the aforementioned would assist the citizens to understand, discuss and eventually offer feedback for the government to respond adequately.

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'Ghost fishing’ technologies to reduce environmental damage

NaijaAgroNet:

New technologies to facilitate easier recovery of lost fishing gear are giving a boost to efforts to reduce so-called "ghost fishing" and its harmful impacts on fish stocks and endangered species, reports NaijaAgroNet.

These technologies include, coded wire tags (CWTs), Satellite buoys with solar power, Active pingers, passive sonar reflectors and LED.

NaijaAgroNet reports that advances in marking technology are offering new possibilities for efficient tracking and recovery of lost gear and are changing the way the problem is being tackled, citing for instance, the Coded Wire Tags (CWTs) are being tested as a potential tool for reducing entanglements of marine mammals, turtles and other large marine animals. The nano-sized, laser-etched CTWs are implanted in fishing ropes with no effect on fishing performance but making them detectable to special sensors.

Also, NaijaAgroNet learnt that satellite buoys with solar power are now commonly used in industrial purse seine operations, providing unlimited range and extra-long operating time. While other sensors, like Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers, could be attached to a radio buoy and used to transmit data.

Acoustic technology is equally another add-on, which takes advantage of the sound transmission properties of seawater, also has applications in locating lost gear. Whereas the Active pingers emit sounds at certain frequencies once in the water, the passive sonar reflectors capture and reflect sound energy back to its source.

Just as the lights have long been an integral part of fishing gear markers for the night but today energy-efficient Light-Emitting Diode (LEDs) are being fitted with solar panels, amplifying their effectiveness.

This follows growing concern over this problem, coupled with the increasing availability of these technologies, NaijaAgroNet reports, led FAO to begin developing international guidelines on the effective tagging of fishing gear as a way to cut down levels of troublesome sea trash.

Known as the abandoned, lost and otherwise discarded fishing gear (ALDFG), NaijaAgroNet reports that abandoned fishing gear makes up a significant portion of all marine debris, a growing problem in marine ecosystems.

Levels of ALDFG, NaijaAgroNet reports, have gone up significantly in recent decades as a result of increases in the scale of fishing operations and the extensive use of long-lasting synthetic materials. At present, it accounts for about one-tenth of all marine litter, translating into hundreds of thousands of tonnes annually.

This abandoned gear is one of the most problematic types of marine debris, since it can remain in the oceans for years, often continuing to carry out the capture process it was designed for, entangling fish and other marine animals in its nets and killing them - a phenomenon known as ghost fishing.

"The effective marking of fishing gear in busy multi-user sea areas is key to preventing its loss and protecting marine ecosystems," according to FAO Fishery Industry Officer Petri Suuronen. "Fishers can also benefit from the use of new gear tagging technologies which will allow them to minimise loss of potential catch and expensive equipment, and save time searching for lost gear," he said.

Abandoned and lost gears are also a hazard to safe navigation due to fouling of ship propulsion systems and propellers, and marking can help prevent accidents and fatalities.

It can also be a tool in the fight against illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing, allowing control authorities to monitor how fishing gear is being used in their waters and who is using it.

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Farmers urged to embrace corporatives, technologies

NaijaAgroNet:

Bank of Industry (BoI) has urged Nigerian farmers to embrace corporatives and technologies to boost agric-business development in the country, especially cassava so as to make it profitable, reports NaijaAgroNet.

The Managing Director, Mr. Rasheed Olaoluwa, represented by Group Head, Agro Processing Unit of BOI, Mrs. Kadafa Lolo Ruth made this call at a one-day stakeholders consultative meeting in Lagos.

BOI also noted that lots of farmers are individualistic and seldom come together as a team to have a registered corporative or association which could enable them to access loans from financial institutions.

“Many farmers come to the Bank of Industry to seek for loans but they do not have any tractable sales record or evidence of market sales, they cannot present convincing workable proposals or a clear thought-out business frame work that could enable them secure loans,” Olaoluwa said.

He, therefore, charged farmers to integrate and collaborate with like-minds, utilize technological tool to improve the quality of the produce and package them as premium brands that consumers will be willing to pay for.

Equally speaking at occasion, Sales Director for Bosch West Africa, Mr. Francis Omoniyi said, “Bosch will be giving one year free service maintenance to customers that purchase any of their tools and educate them on how to fully utilize the equipment” stressing that Bosch wants to assist in boosting the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by structuring agric business via capacity building.

 

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Buhari urged to increase allocation to agriculture

  NaijaAgroNet

The president-elect, General Muhammadu Buhari (retd) has been advised by a concerned Nigerian to ensure that agriculture received a good chunk of budgetary allocation to boost food security, reports NaijaAgroNet.

Mr. Seyi Adebowale, an agriculturalist and the Director of Sophix Farms, Omu-Aran, Kwara State, made this call during an interview with news men in Omu-Aran.

In his word, "The incoming government led by the President-elect, Maj.-Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, needs a strong political will to take decisive steps to develop the agriculture sector. The challenges of inadequate budgetary allocation and lack of awareness on viability of agriculture to solve our domestic food crisis are issues requiring priority attention," he said.

NaijaAgroNet further learnt that the agriculturalist also faulted the negative disposition of government officials, bankers, entrepreneurs and investors to agriculture, adding that, "The major stumbling block against development in agriculture today is as a result of the wrong mind-set that government officials, bankers, entrepreneurs and investors have about the sector.”

He stated that he had heard bankers and investors saying that they cannot invest in agriculture because of the risk involved and noted that such trend remained a stumbling block to develop the sector.

Adebowale expressed the urgent need for a re-ordering of priorities by stakeholders in the nation's economy towards embracing land policy to boost agricultural production, NaijaAgroNet gathered.

Cyriacus Nnaji/ GEE

 
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