MARKET DEVELOPMENT AND FUNDRAISING CAPACITY FOR LOCAL ORGANIZATIONS
In our new 2020-2024 strategic plan, PIND’s capacity-building efforts will continue to build the institutional, organizational, and technical capacity of local organizations in the Niger Delta—CSOs (civil society organizations), BMOs (business membership organizations), and community-based service providers—to adopt the market-systems-development approach and to use the skills to raise funds for social development programs (SDPs), in contribution to SDG 4 & 8. Stakeholders validated this approach during a 2019 participatory strategic review (PSR) of PIND.
Market systems interventions are supported by co-facilitators who need to have knowledge and expertise on the approach. They must also have the added ability to write proposals and mobilize funds for such projects. In the second 2015–2019 strategic phase, in partnership with the FCDO-funded MADE project, PIND began a training and mentoring program on the market systems approach for local organizations to increase the availability of the expertise in the region.
During 2020, PIND continued the practical mentorship program for ten (10) interested co-facilitating organizations. We also prioritized supporting local NGOs to raise funds to respond effectively to the COVID-19 pandemic threat by conducting a four-day (4-day) virtual training on resource mobilization and proposal writing for 45 persons from 12 local organizations. This increased their ability to attract funding and implement quality development programs for social welfare and economic growth.
SUMMARY OF OUTCOMES IN 2020
Funds and Grants Totaling NGN 120.5 million
From Donor Agencies for Development Programs
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Open in new tab POLICIES AND LONG-TERM DEVELOPMENT PLANS
30- YEAR DEVELOPMENT PLAN - A ROADMAP IN TAKING POLICY DECISIONS
‘’I am Dr. Nnnena Chikezie, the Permanent Secretary and the Executive Secretary of Abia State Planning Commission. Our collaboration with PIND in developing the Abia State long term plan was very demanding. It was equally a learning process and it gave us confidence that we were dealing with an organization that has strong technical strength to deliver. Even with the COVID-19, PIND kept pushing on, encouraging the State to go with the project. PIND gave us a project manager that would not stop until he got the target achieved. We had to adapt to the new normal and because there was every need to deliver the project on PIND’s part, they supported us in every way.
We were having physical meetings, and we had town hall meetings. But during the COVID, we started doing more of virtual and online meetings and less of physical meetings and that was what helped us to get through. And PIND was always there to give us the support. I remember there was a time we needed to do physical valuation but because of COVID we couldn’t. Then PIND set up virtual meetings, and the meeting held.
Right now, we have a 30-year development plan which means we now have a sense of direction in our administration that will run through this government and the ones to come. The plan is there to guide us in our policy decision in the years to come and that’s the only way you can sustain development. Incoming government in Abia State would have to use the document to drive the development of the state. They will have a road map in taking policy decision in resource allocation to the different sectors and a guideline also to achieve result that will lead to economic growth and sustainable development.
Everybody that was part of the project is to be appreciated, from the secretariat to the planning officers, the permanent secretary and to the Exco and then to the legislative arm and judiciary and above all the Governor was always there to give listening ears at any time. I want to especially thank PIND for bringing in the civil servants and knowing that for us to have institutional memory of what we did, civil servants were the ones to use and they made sure that the civil servants were in the business’.’
Transiting from physical to virtual government engagements necessitated by the pandemic restrictions and lockdowns, PIND’s technical support enabled the government officials and agencies to complete the Abia State long-term development plan in 2020. The long-term plan (started in 2019) was publicly validated in a Zoom session in November 2020 with 43 attendees from academia, the government, the private sector, and donor agencies. It was presented to the Executive Governor of Abia State for transmission to the state House of Assembly for legislation. The plan, when implemented, will transform the state’s development efforts from the ad-hoc tenure-based style to a more holistic approach that will generate economic opportunities and an improved standard of living for the people.
Similarly, the draft Edo State long-term development plan document (started in 2019) was produced through project management and technical support from PIND. Preceding the production of the draft plan and on the request of the Edo State Executive Governor, PIND trained the state’s civil servants on the value and development of a long-term plan manual that would inform the plan’s implementation when finalized and launched in early 2021. Collectively, both state governments displayed strong ownership of the plans by each committing NGN 20 million to support the development processes.
As part of its role in enabling economic development, 2020 saw PIND’s advocacy working to broker symbiotic relationships between private investors and state governments to increase local cassava production through out-grower models that will increase wealth for the smallholder farmers in Delta State and Edo State. They are expected to invest in modern cassava processing technology, working capital, value-added services, and market diversification; the state governments provide arable land for the initiatives.
Edo State – To boost local cassava production, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in 2020 announced an NGN 25-billion loan package targeting over 100,000 cassava farmers nationwide who are certain of high productivity using improved and disease-free cassava stems to assure loan repayment. NGN 14 billion is set aside for conventional cassava farmers to plant from one (1) to five (5) hectares. Over the years, PIND’s cassava value chain project has promoted improved production practices, including better cassava stems and access to finance for farmers in the Niger Delta.
To enable cassava farmers in Edo State to access the CBN loan, PIND and SAEL Global, a private cassava farming company with a track record on large-scale HGH (high-gross margin) cassava production, secured a leasehold of 2,000 ha land for an out-grower scheme in Edo State. Through the out-grower scheme, 400 smallholder farmers can cultivate five (5) ha of farmland each and meet the requisite conditions for the CBN five-star Anchor Borrowers Program. The farmers will also receive support from PIND’s crop of service providers on good agricultural practices, inputs to improve their outputs, and access to the market for their produce—making loan repayment possible.
Delta State – PIND began forging links between two (2) private investors (Africa Global Shaffer and Shine Bridge Global) and the Delta State Ministry of Agriculture. Our goal was to set up a cassava production and processing hub that would be technology-driven and boost local production. Following virtual engagements with key persons in the year, the Delta State government has indicated a willingness to provide 10,000 ha of land for the scheme. PIND will be facilitating an official tripartite agreement between the parties in the coming year.
Recognizing the strong link between peace and economic development, PIND pursued stakeholders’ buy-in to a structured, proactive response to security threats to lives and livelihoods in the Niger Delta to sustain economic opportunities and enable growth. In the last quarter of 2020, PIND and its U.S.-based partner Niger Delta Partnership Initiative (NDPI) and Fund for Peace (FFP) co-organized a virtual roundtable themed “Building on Success for a Holistic Niger Delta Security Network in 2021.”
Virtually attended by 56 key stakeholders from the government, the donor community, civil society, academia, and other local and international groups, the roundtable engaged stakeholders on the design of a peace and security framework for the Niger Delta that would curtail violence, reduce fragility, and foster opportunities for the region’s long-term development. PIND showcased its high-value EWER framework and the successes of the P4P Network as possible elements of the proposed architecture to the roundtable participants. The roundtable tasked the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs and the BRACED Commission to design the regional security framework in 2021.
Insightful information and analysis empower people to know, act and practice appropriately in favor of economic development and peace. In 2020, the emergence of COVID-19 and its follow-on anxieties and uncertainties increased the need for information. Conversely, the restrictions and lockdowns limited people’s access to information – making them turn more and more to online information channels. As far back as 2014, PIND had understood and recognized the power of the internet. We had subsequently established an online advocacy platform, NDLink, to foster virtual development information and discourse.
NDLink rose to the occasion of raised information needs in 2020, as it forged content partnerships with six (6) organizations and leveraged phone calls, social media, text messages, WhatsApp, and Zoom to coordinate its field content providers known as NDLink champions. NDLink provided timely development information, emerging trends, and issues within the development sector and facilitated commentaries and analysis from leading voices in development practice during the year, earning over 4,000 resource downloads from the site and emerging as the sixth top referring site in the region by Google in 2020.