The Minister of Budget and Economic Planning, Sen. Atiku Abubakar Bagudu has reiterated that the Renewed Hope Agenda of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu values positive development especially in terms of industrialization.
He made this known when a group of delegates from the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) led by Mr. Jean B. Bakole paid him a courtesy visit in his office recently.
The Minister also received a copy of the Programme for Country Partnership (PCP) document which would form the basis for 2023-2027 cooperation agreement. He said that the constitution of the committee was sequel to the request of the past administration in March 2021 for UNIDO to upscale its Country programme 2018-2022 in its next programme cycle starting from 2023 to 2027.
Bagudu said, “The assignment of the committee was to align the proposed Nigeria PCP (2023-2027) priority areas with the National Development Plan (NDP) 2021-2025 and identify sources of funding for the PCP during the programme period.
The Minister, who frowned at the tepid state of industrial development in Nigeria, lamented that most of the agreements on World Trade are not favourable to Nigeria and Africa at large; he opined that the rate of systemic discrimination is really high in terms of access to capital.
Sen. Bagudu therefore solicited for their support as whatever support given to Nigeria could be a springboard to other countries across Africa. Saying that there is no doubt that we can work together to provide more capital.
While he extolled the role of the African woman across the continent as hardworking and enterprising, he said, we need a conscious effort to promote and protect them so they don’t lose out in industrialization.
He appreciated the role of UNIDO and encouraged them that it was not too late to speed up cooperation and applauded their strong leadership structure, their gender and women empowerment specialist, saying such area is usually ignored in industrial development.
The Permanent Secretary of the Ministry, Mr Nebeolisa Anako who spoke earlier, expressed his sactisfaction towards the activities of UNIDO, he said the agricultural bio value chain is a very important program, he informed them that the program aligns with the deliverables of the Ministry to develop the Agricultural value chain like the Cassava value chain of which a pilot project is in progress, and therefore encouraged UNIDO to focus more attention in this area.
Earlier, when the Regional Director, Jean Bakole spoke, he appreciated the Minister for his timely response regarding sensitive economy and extolled Nigeria’s prowess in terms of production capacity, and encouraged the country to focus on qualitative production in order to be competitive in the local and international market.
He therefore called on the Minister for his support to ensure that the counterpart funding of the government on projects is released.
AMAJIOYI IFELUNWA ANN
FOR: DIRECTOR INFORMATION (BEP)
