By George George Idowu
The Minister of Environment Balarabe Abbas Lawal has said in order to mitigate and effectively tackle the issue of climate change, food security, Nigeria must focus on getting accurate data from all levels.
He made this known on Thursday during the official launching of Agro-climatic Resilience in Semi-Arid Landscapes (ACReSAL) 50×2030 initiatives in Abuja.
The 50×2030 initiatives are one led by a program management team within the World Bank’s Development Data Group. It is a multi-agency partnership that seeks to transform data systems in 50 countries by 2030.
According to a report, the scarcity of high quality, relevant agricultural data makes it challenging for policy makers to form sound decisions that drive economic growth and reduce poverty.
He said: “50×2030 Initiative is a World Bank and FAO led global agriculture and climate statistics programme working in minimising data gap, building national statistics systems and promoting evidence-informed agriculture in 50 low, lower-middle and middle-income countries around the world by the year 2030.
“In Nigeria, 50×2030 Initiative will work closely with the ACReSAL team, Ministry of Environment, Ministry of Agriculture, and the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).”
Balarabe said the level of hotness that has been emitting for a while now is much and can be subsequently attributed to climate change.
Thus, he urged all relevant stakeholders involved in this project to ensure they get accurate data that will help in addressing most of these issues.
In his words: “The importance of data in everything we do can never be down played.” Most especially in agriculture, environment, water and climate change. He explained how data has helped him in increasing its farm products when he was still an active farmer.
Earlier, the Chief Executive Officer of National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), Mr. Yemi Adenira appreciated the opportunity that has been given to the bureau in leading the charge of getting these data available.
“50×2030 initiatives as we know it have to do with agricultural data for the country. I want to say that this project is going to revolutionaries’ agricultural data for us in Nigeria.
“We are going to have data consistently available for the next five years. In any aspect of agriculture, we will be able to provide indicators. We are not only going to be looking at production in agriculture such as crops, livestock, fishery, forestry but we are also going to be having data on climate change, environment, water availability amongst others,” he added.
He assured that the data will be comprehensive enough to help government, agencies, and stakeholders in policy and decision making.
Similarly, the representative of the World Bank Team led by the Social Development Leader Vinay Vutukuru, said that this project would address the impacts of climate change and food insecurity in Nigeria through data-smart agriculture.
He urged the government to adequately use whatever data will be provided to make policies, decisions that will be beneficial to all, and sundry.
In the same vein, Abdulhamid Umar, the National Project Coordinator of the ACReSAL Project said that indeed 50×2030 is an initiative by the World Bank wherein 50 countries in the world, which are members of the world Bank.
“The initiative is to provide strength and capacity for those nations to enable them capture and gather reliable data from the agric site, in order words to ensure food security in the nation. The project is also to reach out to 36 states and the FCT,” he added.
Mr Koffy Kouacou Dominque, the representative of Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in Nigeria and to ECOWAS said that 50×2030 initiative is aimed at bridging the agricultural data gap and build strong national data systems that will produce and use high quality, timely agricultural survey data in Nigeria.
Dominque who was represented by Tofiq Braimah said FAO is committed to continue this initiative in order to make sure adequate capacity is built at national level to sustain the production of agricultural statistics in Nigeria.
He said: “This effort will be designed in such a way that National Bureau of Statistics and the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security will be in the driving seat of this data production to make sure that the technical assistance provided in this 50×2030 initiative is sustained.
“With this collaboration, data on core agricultural variables as well as Income and labour productivity, production methods and environment as well as use of machineries and equipment will be collected to regularly avail data on agriculture.
“50×2030 Partnership: Once again, FAO in collaboration with the World Bank team, is on board to assist the NBS and Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security in implementing the 50×2030 approach to have an annual agricultural survey in Nigeria for the next five years,” he added.
Sen. Aliyu Abdullahi, Minister of State for Agriculture and Food Security said that the initiative would unlock the potentials of the agriculture sector and foster economic growth.
Abdullahi who was represented by Mr Oshadiya Olanipekun, Director, Lands and Climate Management Services in the ministry noted that food security is eminent in the country through the use of data-smart agriculture.
On the part of Dr. Joy Agene, the Task Team Leader for the ACReSAL Project and Senior Environmental Specialist, World Bank, she said the 50×2030 Initiative will assist Nigeria in conducting surveys that will produce regular, high-quality agricultural data for use in policy development.