Ireland donates £1m to IDPs in agriculture

The government of Ireland has donated £1 million to support the rehabilitation of the Boko Haram victims to return into agriculture.

The Ambassador of Ireland to Nigeria, Sean Hoy, stated this during a courtesy visit to the minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Audu Ogbeh, in his office in Abuja.

“With the support of Food Agriculture Organization (FAO), we will support the cost of seeds, hiring of tractors among others. Though we are still planning on the modalities the money will be used for.

“We are the implementing partner in this program and the Irish government is routing the money through us based on their confidence in our technical expertise and the experience that we have in the humanitarian around we are working in the Northeast.

“There are already IDPs that have been very close to their communities who have been allocated lands, these are the ones that we would be targeting. Another group we want to target are women because in crisis situation, it is mostly the women that suffer. So the beneficiaries will be purposefully sample and targeted as women, youth, either for keeping small ruminants,  little poultry or on the household level, vocational help will be given like those netting caps, those frying akara so they start building get their lives again,” he said.

The year-long project will target 3000 beneficiaries divided in to 900 crop farmers and 95 per cent women engagement.

The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Audu Ogbeh, while commending the Irish government, said there is no way to calculate the amount of pains Boko Haram activities has caused the masses in the Northeast.