WTO to boost Nigerian non-oil export with $1.2m funding

The World Trade Organization (WTO) has disclosed plans to provide Nigeria with $1.2 million in funding for the implementation of policies and programmes that will improve the country’s non-oil export.

Speaking on Tuesday in Abuja at the launch of a pivotal transformative initiative in the development of Nigeria’s trade and industry landmark, the Director General of WTO, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said the project aims at tackling cases of Nigerian products rejected at the international market.

She explained, “We are launching today with STDF, ITC, and the NEPC, a project to help with international safety and quality certification for sesame and cowpeas or black-eyed peas.

“The agriculture sector in Nigeria has the potential to be a major driver of export diversification and job creation – but too much of this potential remains unrealized, due to a variety of barriers.

“We all know the story about Nigeria being a significant exporter of palm kernel, groundnuts, palm oil, cotton and cocoa in the past– but again we all know, that the country has since become a net importer of many of those goods.

“In fact, Nigeria has not only lost out in agricultural export markets, it is a net food importer spending about billions a year for goods, many of which we can also produce here.”

The DG stated that a World Bank paper put it, and I quote “Nigeria… used to be a formidable agricultural exporter. Up to the mid-1960s, the country’s share of world agricultural exports was more than 1 per cent.

“However, agricultural exports collapsed as the economy shifted towards petroleum exploitation, and by the mid-1980s Nigeria’s world market share for agricultural products had dwindled to less than 0.1 per cent.

“Some of Nigeria’s unrealised potential has to do with trade-related problems on the supply side – and that is what this project is seeking to rectify.

“Nigeria is the world’s largest producer and consumer of cowpeas. Sesame is primarily an export crop, and Nigeria is the world’s fourth leading producer, exporting to the EU, Türkiye, Japan, South Korea and other Asian markets.

“However, Nigerian cowpea and sesame exports have increasingly faced rejections in several destination markets due to non-compliance with international SPS requirements.”

She said for example, “Nigeria accounts for over a third of Japan’s sesame imports – but health and safety inspections during the past few years have found instances where pesticide residue levels were nearly double the maximum residue limits permissible from 2019 to 2021.

“To tackle these problems, this new project aims to build the capacities of stakeholders across the sesame and cowpeas value chains to understand market access requirements better, to improve agricultural practices such as pesticide application, hygiene techniques, harvest and post-harvest methods, and food safety”.

Iweala said “the project – which will kick off with an initial amount of $1.2 million – of which nearly a million comes from STDF – will also be used to train local food safety advisers.

“This type of project is one I term a low expenditure, high impact project. The WTO is not a financing agency like the World Bank or IMF but it has a wonderful secret that I find very attractive.

“It spends small sums of money to make a big impact. You cannot imagine how a million-dollar intervention can earn Nigeria hundreds of millions of dollars if not billions in increased agricultural exports, supporting improved incomes for farmers, exporters, businesses and others once agriculture producers and exporters follow the correct sanitary and phytosanitary standards.”

ALSO READ: Reps decry high rate of failed bank transactions

In her address, the Executive Director of the Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC), Nonye Ayeni explained that available facts reveal that Nigerian food exports including sesame and cowpea have often faced rejection due largely to poor quality, inefficient procedures and documentation, Sanitary and Phyto-sanitary issues and improper packaging and labelling among others.

“A good number of these factors led to the decision of WTO/ITC to sponsor the STDF project, which will be backed by expected 30% counterpart funding from NEPC.

“This project, STDF 845, will therefore enhance the quality and standard of sesame and cowpea through the institution of good Sanitary and Phyto-sanitary (SPS) conducts, Good Agricultural and Warehousing Practices (GAWP), packaging/labelling and excellent storage systems.

“All these are expected to forestall frequent contract cancellations and loss of business opportunities, while allowing significant increase of global acceptance of the items and for better quality of these products consumed locally.”

She further said the project is designed to last for three years with the objective of enhancing the integrity of the cowpea and Sesame value chain from Nigeria.

“Therefore, the focus lies on improved practices that will enable Nigerian stakeholders to comply with maximum residue levels of selected pesticides used in cowpeas and sesame and microbiological contamination with Salmonella (Sesame).

“Overall, it will improve the regulatory and control system as well as farming and processing practices applied for Cowpea and Sesame,” Ayeni stated.