The Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) Germany has commended AFOS Foundation, a civil advocacy organisation’s commitment to Agribusiness Projects in Nigeria.
The CEO and Country Representative of AFOS Nigeria, Oladipupo Akoni, said this in a statement on Wednesday in Abuja.
He quoted the Senior Policy Officer of BMZ, Dr. Manuel Neumann, as making the commendation at a one-day meeting held with top officers of the Foundation in Lagos.
He said that the meeting was convened to appraise the AFOS projects and interventions in Nigeria and Africa and discuss opportunities for further collaboration with the BMZ, as well as to explore ways to enhance AFOS’ existing projects.
According to him, Neumann specifically lauded the foundation’s effort in capacity building across Nigeria’s agribusiness and entrepreneurial value chains, for the successes recorded so far on its ongoing projects in Nigeria.
Managing Director of AFOS Foundation, Bernhard Vester, explained that the completion of the Agricultural Training Centre building and the commencement of in-class TVET, Agrifinance and Management training, marked a major milestone in the Foundation’s mission.
According him, the mission of the foundation is to empower agripreneurs to thrive, while fostering inclusive and resilient economic growth in Nigeria.
“Our projects have demonstrated success thus far.
“With confidence in our capabilities, we remain committed to delivering outstanding results and eagerly anticipate the ongoing support from the BMZ to foster entrepreneurial growth and development across Africa,” Vester said.
Speaking on the importance of the projects for Nigeria Akoni said: “AFOS’ projects in Nigeria are helping to address the issues of food insecurity, extreme poverty, unemployment and massive migration of the young population, through capacity building of the agricultural sector.
“This is to promote digital agriculture, enhance the efficiency of local agricultural value chains and the agribusiness industry and improve the performance and outreach of the microfinance subsector by offering micro insurance policies mainly also to farmers.
“AFOS is supporting entrepreneurs to thrive by developing new dual vocational training systems in the agricultural sector, and by conducting training and providing technical support for accelerated lending for agricultural purposes.”
Similarly, International Long-term Expert at AFOS Nigeria-INGO, Dietmar Speckmaier, said the foundation mission was to promote sustainable agricultural growth in Nigeria
“Our mission to promote sustainable agricultural growth in Nigeria has led to the development of an Agricultural Training Centre (ATC)- a physical training Centre which offers best practice technical and management programs across the agribusiness value chains towards meeting agricultural production needs.
“The ATC was first initiated in 2019 as a roadmap for sustainable capacity development within the agriculture industry.
“After five years of dedicated project engagement, the Agricultural Training Center (ATC) has been successfully established with the contribution of our partners in the agriculture industry.
“We are pleased to announce that the ATC is on track to receive accreditation from the Auslandshandelskammer (AHK), marking a significant milestone in our journey towards fostering agricultural development and empowerment,” Speckmaier stressed.