FG MOVES TO DRIVE AGRICULTURAL DEVT

The Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, in collaboration with
Synergos (a global non-profit organisation that fights poverty and its effects), held a
two-day strategy retreat for Directors in the ministry to unlock institutional
effectiveness for the new agriculture sector roadmap – the Green Alternative. The
strategy retreat discussed options and provided guidance on the development of a post
2016/pre 2017-2019 strategic framework for the Green Alternative. The retreat also
prioritized in-house findings of key intersections of policy making to enable effective
delivery of pre-determined objectives. In his address at the retreat, Minister of
Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh, charged the Directors to
make Nigeria a major player in the agriculture sector that could boast of $50 billion
annually from agriculture alone. He further urged the participants to “take the matter
serious, get to work and do your best to make Nigeria great again.” He was of the
opinion that clear targets must be set for each department in order to promote a culture
of accountability. The Permanent Secretary of the Ministry, Dr. Shehu Idris, in his
overview of the Ministry and its parastatals, stressed that the overriding purpose of the
retreat was to showcase the power and effectiveness of working as a team to drive the
Green Alternative. He added that the next of such retreat will hold along with
parastatals of the Ministry for better synergy, drive, delivery and results. Departmental
alignment as the building blocks for delivery of the Green
Alternative was stressed at the retreat. To this end, every department in the Ministry
made presentations on their mandates and plans for 2017, with focus on alignment
with the Green Alternative. The strategy retreat also witnessed presentations on
sustainable change, systems approach, public-private sector engagements and
agriculture sector baseline data/monitoring and evaluation framework development.
There were also peer review exercise, action planning, and target setting for key
strategic objectives.