Juliet Uduji
The United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (UNFAO) and Cross River State Government have agreed to partner on some Agricultural and ICT training for staff of key Ministries, Departments, and Agencies in the State.
The partnership was as a result of meetings by the Commissioner, Ministry of International Development Cooperation, MIDC, and the Lead Advisor to the Governor on Green Money, Amb. Nkoyo Toyo with the UN FAO Representative, Mr. Suffyan Koroma at the UN Country Office in Abuja.
Commissioner for International Development Cooperation, Dr. Inyang Asibong who gave a briefing on the programme disclosed that her ministry will be coordinating training meant to build the capacity of staff of some key clusters of the state on agrotechnology and info-business in line with the Cross River State Government efforts towards achieving Sustainable Development Goals.
Dr. Inyang Asibong explained that the State Government’s Core Policy under Governor Ayade’s administration is on Modern Agricultural Production, Distribution and its value chains, markets as well Industrialization.
She explained that the state has keyed into the Federal Government’s initiative on Food Security and Agricultural revolution to achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), explaining that building the capacity of key MDAs and investing in innovative technology will guarantee food sufficiency not only to Cross River but Nigeria in general.
“I thank the Technical Team for partnering with Cross River which is one of the three Sates in Nigeria to benefit from the UN capacity building on modern ICT with Kano and Lagos as two other beneficiaries” she added.
Speaking earlier during the visit, the UNFAO technical team leader, Mr. Dare Olurunmole who is also a project Desk Officer at the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development said the visit was to identify the ICT needs of the Agricultural lines of Ministries, Department, and Agencies (MDAs). The beneficial MDAS include the Ministry of Agriculture, FADAMA, SPC, SBS, ADP among others with MIDC as coordinating ministry.
Mr. Olorunmole thanked the Cross River State Government as one of the leading states setting the standard in achieving a better quality of Agricultural Produce, with adequate available data in support of the Sustainable development Goals.