IFAD grants $13m supplementary loan for CBARDP programme

DUE to the impressive implementation of the Community-Based Agriculture and Rural Development Programme (CBARDP), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) has extended the programme for three more years.In a statement made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Monday, Alhaji Abu Kankia, the CBARDP Programme Co-ordinator, stated that IFAD had also provided a 13-million-dollar supplementary loan to cover for the period.Kankia said that the extension and provision of additional funds was to enable ``the consolidation of its performance and achievements.By the extension, the programme, which began on March 31, 2003, and earlier billed to close on March 31, 2010, would run until March 31, 2013.The extension would ``enhance the adaptation, expansion and up-scaling of best practices for more and greater socio-economic and geo-political impact, the statement said.The programme is being implemented in the seven arid northern states of Yobe, Jigawa, katsina, Zamfara, Sokoto, Kebbi and Borno.It is being implemented as an integrated agriculture and rural development intervention aimed at improving the livelihood and living conditions of rural poor people and communities, with emphasis on women and vulnerable groups in the participating states.About 69 local government areas and 207 rural communities/village areas are benefitting from the programme.A concept note on the justification for the supplementary loan cited CBARDPs keyachievement, as relating to the introduction and entrenchment of the democratic process implied in the community-based, beneficiary-driven, market-led, participatory development.It noted that the Community-Driven Development (CDD) approach championed by the programme had empowered communities by enabling beneficiaries to identify and prioritise activities of their interest.It has also enabled them to establish, implement and manage such activities in a cost-effective, transparent and sustainable manner, according to the statement.It quoted IFAD as saying that the proposed supplementary financing support is intended to contribute towards achieving the goal of rural poverty reduction and enhanced food security.In 2010 alone, the CBARDP carried out 2,876 activities across all its major programme component areas with 2.6 million people benefitting, the statement said.It stressed that the proposed extension of the programme would ``vigorously promote up-scaling and replication of proven best practices, especially at the level of local government councils and communities.
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