Statement by the Honourable Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Head of the Nigerian Delegation, Mallam Adamu Bello, Honourable Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development

18th-19th February 2004

Mr. Chairman,
Fellow Governors & Delegates,
The President of IFAD, Mr. Lennart Bage,
Your Excellencies,
Distinguished Ladies & Gentlemen

Mr. Chairman, please permit me to join the other delegates in congratulating you and the other members of the Bureau for your election to direct the affairs of this Council at this Session and for the next one year, we wish you well.
Let me also commend the management and staff of IFAD for their hard work in preparing for this meeting and especially for the high quality documents placed before us for consideration. From the information available to me, the past year has been particularly taxing for staff and management. It is to your credit that you all pulled through it without compromising the professional quality of your work here.

Mr. Chairman, at its inception in the 1970s, IFAD was the only multilateral financial institution with a clearly stated focus on rural poverty. Between then and now, the arena for the war against poverty has widened considerably. The international community appears now adequately conscientized about the plight of the rural poor and the major multilateral development agencies have now made poverty reduction their main development goal. The subject of poverty has thus been brought to the centre-stage of the international development agenda.

 

Under this environment, the challenge before IFAD is to strategize on maximizing its comparative advantage and in maintaining its niche and providing leadership in combating rural poverty and promoting rural development in general. In responding to this challenge, it must maintain its unique focus and the core-thrust of its mission and mandate which remain as relevant to-day as they were over a quarter of a century ago when the organization was established. IFAD must therefore fine-tune its operational strategies in order to re-position itself for these emerging challenges. It is in this context that my delegation lends its fullest support to the reform processes that have been embarked upon by the Organization at both corporate and field operational levels aimed at strengthening its programme impact at the project and country policy levels.

Mr. Chairman, permit me to make specific mention of two of these reforms. First, the issue of Field Presence and in-country capacity: my delegation is of the view that this matter has been on the table for too long, we must get cracking. It is our hope that the pilot-phase will provide sufficiently convincing justification to entrench it in IFAD Operational Model. My delegation strongly shares the view that there is need for some form of arrangement that will enable IFAD to participate at much closer level in the discussion (with its partners) of the core-policy issues impacting on rural poverty reduction and rural development in general at the country level. Considering the relatively small country-project portfolio of IFAD, closer face-to face personal interactions both at formal and informal levels offer the best opportunity for the organization to make critical inputs that may help influence relevant national policies.
In endorsing the proposal on Performance-Based Resource Allocation System, Nigeria would want to sound a word of advice: that nothing is done to compromise the mission and mandate and the unique focus of IFAD and that the plight of the poorest of the poor does not get aggravated through the process; that the present regional allocation ration remains largely unchanged; that the system is not allowed to degenerate into a punitive instrument; that the procedure should be relatively simple – devoid of the complexities of similar schemes being operated by much bigger MFIs which in any case, are generally, diffused in terms of their clientele focus.

My delegation believes that programme evaluation is a crucial tool for enhancing programme accountability, relevance and impact. Nigeria therefore welcomes the ongoing independent external evaluation of IFAD and hopes that the report will further help in redefining the road map that will promote the operational effectiveness of IFAD and the sustainability of the impact of its operations. In particular, we would welcome their assessment of the on-going reforms. Nigeria eagerly looks forward to receiving the report both as benefactor and as beneficiary.

On its part, the Government of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo has made poverty alleviation a major plank of its economic policy. A number of structural reforms are already being put in place. From the social angle, Government is aggressively pursuing the restoration of fundamental human rights of the civil society, respect for the rule of law, transparency in governance and an uncompromising crusade against corruption all in an effort to create the right social-political environment that will help propel the revival of the economy and thereby aid the poor and particularly the rural poor to walk their way out of poverty. A number of legal and administrative instruments are being put in place to address some of these issues.

Finally, Mr. Chairman, I wish to reiterate the commitment of the Government of Nigeria to continue its support for this forward looking Organization which our country played a key role in getting established. Let me place on record, our country’s deepest appreciation to the President of IFAD and his Management for the active role is currently playing in our country’s effort to restore hope for our rural population.

Mr. Chairman, Fellow Governors, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, thank you for your attention.