The World Bank has set aside $520 million for rural roads infrastructure across selected states in the country.
This was disclosed by the World Bank Country Director for Rural Access And Agricultural Marketing Project (RAAMP), Tunji Ahmed during a visit to Kwara State governor, Abdulfatah Ahmed at the government house in Ilorin.
Ahmed said the project was sponsored by the World Bank, French Development Bank and Africa Development Bank to provide suitable road network for rural farmers to convey their farm produce to the market and avoid losses arising from wastages during transportation.
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He said the project will be implemented as soon as the World Bank approves the project and Federal Government reaches a financial agreement with the World Bank.
“We know that farmers lost up to 25% of their products because of lack of access to the market. This project is suspected to be taken to the World Bank Board by May 2018 and as soon as the World Bank Board approves the project, there will be a financial agreement between the World Bank and the Federal Government of Nigeria.
“There will be a subsidiary agreement between the Federal Government and the state and this is when the project implementation will start.
Different states across the country numbering 23 applied for the loan programme in 2018 and the World body is presently supporting 10 states with $520million.
The World Bank Country Director noted that 25per cent of farm produce are lost as a result of lack of access to markets occasioned by bad roads, adding that RAAMP would improve rural access, agricultural marketing and open up rural areas in the selected participating states.
Responding, the Kwara State Governor, Abdulfatah Ahmed identified lack of good road network as an impediment to the movement of farm produce to the market for final consumers, thereby leading to wastages.
The governor said the decision by the state government to present the proposal for the World Bank’s rural access and agricultural marketing project was to create connectivity in moving farm produce to the market, promising that the state government has made provision for counterpart fund to enable it to access the facility.
