World Bank Team Visits Bauchi To Assess Implementation Of ACReSAL Project

The World Bank team have visited Bauchi state to assessing and reviewing implementation strategies of Agro-Climatic Resilience in Semi-Arid Landscapes (ACReSAL) project that has started over one year in the state to observe the level of actually been achieved and the areas if any for corrections where such is to be done.

Speaking with journalists yesterday in Bauchi, Abdulhamid Umar, the National Project Coordinator of of Agro-Climatic Resilience in Semi-Arid Landscapes (ACReSAL) project who led an assessment team to said the World Bank has commended the implementation of ACReSAL project worth 700m Million Dollars in 19 Northern states and FCT to reclaim land degradation in the region.

He said Bauchi state is one of the 19 Northern states and FCT that the World Bank intervention has commenced.”

“The sum of $70 million Dollars is to be accessed by the 19 Northern states and FCT for the purposes of fighting issues surrounding desertification, drought, landscape degradation and deprivation at the level of communities and the land that we live in particularly in the North.”

Abdulhamid Umar stressed that, “That is the reason why we chose Bauchi as one of the states of the Federation and FCT to come over to see things for ourselves and I am happy to tell you that Bauchi falls under category B which are states that did not participate in the initial project but are leading the pack now.”

He explained that the project is to run for six years at the end of which it is expected that things would have turned around positively and the communities will be good for it.

The National Coordinator assured that the project will impact the lives of the people of the affected areas in the state positively as all degraded areas will be reclaimed.

LEADERSHIP recalls that no fewer than three Million ((3,000,000) people, particularly in the rural dwellers in Bauchi state are expected to benefit from the (ACReSAL), a World Bank supported project.

The ACReSAL project will intervene in massive Tree planting, Irrigation Farming. Agroforestry, Green House Farming, Plant Nursery Development Units, Farm Produce Processing Centres and Integrated Solar- Powered Borehole Schemes across all the Local Government Areas in the State.

Seven communities of the Bauchi state namely Gwaram, Kirfi, Gololo, Gwallagan Mayaka, Duguri, Suleiman Adamu and Yakubun Bauchi are beneficiaries of the first stage of the project implementation with huge interventions of civil works to include storm water- drainages and dams to avert effects of flooding and erosion.