Kano State government said there is justification for a second phase of the Kano State Agro-pastoral Development Project, KSADP, considering its achievements in the past five years.
This was made known to newsmen yesterday by the commissioner for agriculture, Dr Danjuma Mahmood who also explained that the second phase will likely include certain components of agriculture that were not captured in the first phase of the project.
He added that it would be jointly financed by the state government, the Islamic Development Bank (IDB), and the Lives and Livelihood Funds, (LLF).
The Commissioner, who gave this indication while receiving a mission comprising officials from the Abuja regional hub of the Islamic Development Bank and the Federal Ministry of Finance, maintained that the government is inspired by the project’s numerous infrastructural achievements and remarkable strides in improving access to sustainable livelihoods in the state.
“The impact with regards to poverty alleviation is so deep, so huge. For instance, the project gives a woman a few goats and within a year or less, the number of goats triples. This has a real impact in rural homes,” he stated.
Dr. Mahmoud said the state governor treats issues related to the KSADP promptly to ensure that tangible results are delivered to farmers. He assured that the government will continue to work with the Islamic Development Bank and the LLF so that Kano will continue to benefit from development initiatives.
The mission leader, Daniyar Abylkhan, said they were in Kano to work with the KSADP’s Project Management Team on the project’s savings utilisation, its exit strategy, and the lingering issue of counterpart funding.
Abylkhan said the mission had visited some project sites in the state and have seen how happy the people are with the KSADP interventions.
He noted that the Kano project has become a model to the extent that some states in Nigeria “want the Islamic Development Bank to literally copy and paste the project in their states”.
