African Development Bank and others will raise $520 million for Nigeria’s agro-zones

The federal and state governments of Nigeria have overwhelmingly backed a plan to establish Special Agro-industrial Processing Zones (SAPZ).

Dr. Zainab Shamsuna Ahmed, Minister of Finance, Budget, and National Planning, who hosted the meeting on Monday, reaffirmed the Federal Government’s commitment to put in place enabling policies and incentives to attract private sector investment in the Zones in order to ensure successful implementation.

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The zones will be implemented in 18 African countries, including Nigeria, according to Lamin Barrow, Director General of the African Development Bank’s Nigeria Country Department.

“The Bank and its development partners are mobilizing $520 million to co-finance the first phase of the program in Nigeria, which will be implemented in phases across six geopolitical zones,” Barrow said. The SAPZ program will be open to all 36 states in Nigeria as well as the Federal Capital Territory.

“The zone model is an explicit industrialization strategy to transform poor rural spaces into zones of prosperity, stem rural-urban migration, end human insecurity induced by herders-farmers clashes, and provide employment to Nigerian youth,” said Prof. Oyebanji Oyeleran-Oyeyinka, Senior Adviser on Industrialization to the President of the AfDB.