FCT to participate in FG, World Bank backed ACReSAL project

Bello Muhammed, FCT Minister

The Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Executive Committee in a bid to boost food production and tackle the effect of climate change on the socio-economic lives of the residents of the capital city at its 10th meeting held recently, approved the participation of the FCT in the Agro-Climate Resilience in Semi-Arid landscape (ACReSAL) project.

The ACReSAL project is a multi-sectoral scheme, covering the environment, agriculture, and water, is designed by the Federal Government to combat desertification, restore degraded lands, and special ecosystem for agriculture and biodiversity conservation.

It is also expected to tackle issues of water scarcity for Agricultural purposes and the negative impact of climate change on Agricultural productivity and livelihood of rural farmers in the country.

The project, which is to be implemented in the 19 Northern States, including FCT is being facilitated by the Ministry of Finance and has already got the support of the World Bank with a loan facility of 700 million dollars, which FCT is among the beneficiaries.

The scheme, which is in line with President Muhammed Buhari‘s sustainable goal of restoring 4 million hectares of degraded agricultural land by 3030, has the long-term objective of increasing the adoption of Climate Resilient Landscape management practices for environmental sustainability and improved agricultural yield for rural farmers, especially women and youth groups.

By approving the subsidiary loan agreement for the ACReSAL project, the FCT is expected to benefit from the sum of a 30 million dollars credit facility at a two per cent interest rate, payable in 30 years and with a grace period of five years.

As part of the subsidiary loan agreement between the World Bank and the Federal Government of Nigeria, a periodic allocation of the portion of the fund is to be made available to each participating state, including the FCT for the six years implementation period of the project.

FCT has agreed to participate in the program due to the availability of large-scale watershed management in the FCT in the lower Usman Dam and other water bodies because of ecosystem degradation within the catchment areas.

Some of the benefits of the project to the FCT include the restoration of 17 hectares of degraded land for Agricultural purposes and biodiversity conservation, the creation of over 25,000 direct jobs in the process of implementation of the project and the adoption of climate-smart irrigation Agriculture for improved agricultural yield and Climate Change mitigation.

Others are the reduction of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions and the development of carbon credit facilities towards payment for ecosystem services (PES).

Also, the project will assist in minimizing the ugly incidences of herders-farmers conflicts, over grazing land, and water among several other benefits.

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