Food Security: LIFE-ND lauds Oborevwori, says project impacts youth, women in Delta

Food Security: LIFE-ND lauds Oborevwori, says project impacts youth, women in Delta


Mr Collins Ashoro, Delta Coordinator,

Livelihood Improvement Family Enterprises

for Niger Delta (LIFE-ND) onTuesday in Asaba at a LIFE-ND Media Roundtable (NANphoto)

Project

By Ifeanyi Olannye

Asaba, Jan. 27, 2026(NAN) Mr Collins Ashoro, Delta Coordinator, Livelihood Improvement Family Enterprises for Niger Delta (LIFE-ND) has lauded Gov. Sheriff Oborevwori of the state for approving payment of three years outstanding counterpart fund.

LIFE-ND project is a tripartite sponsored programme of the Federal Government of Nigeria in collaboration with the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).

Ashoro gave the commendation on Tuesday in Asaba at a LIFE-ND Media Roundtable organised to review the activities of the project from inception in 2019 to date in the 10 selected Local Government Areas of Delta.

The project coordinator said that participating state governments are required to pay a counterpart fund to attract needed funding to execute the project.

According to him, the project’s lifecycle is 12 years disaggregated into two phases of six years each.

“The first phase has been completed in Delta, it began in 2019 and ended in March 2025 while the second phase began with additional financing in October 2025 to run through 2031.

“The project is in response to the limited and readily available agricultural entrepreneurial skills options that focus on youths, women and persons with disabilities in the Niger Delta region.

“The project has received Gov. Sheriff Oborevwori’s approval to pay counterpart fund for the outstanding the years which was last paid in 2020.

The project coordinator said that payment of counterpart fund was vital if the project must deliver on its objectives of ensuring food securty, wealth creation, youth and women engagement and financial freedom among rural dwellers through agribusinesses in the state.

He explained that the project covers nine states in the Niger Delta, adding that six states; Delta, Edo, Cross River, Abia, Ondo and Beyelsa are supported by IFAD while Akwa Ibom, Imo and Rivers are supported by NDDC.

“LIFE-ND Project has a financing plan of 90 million US dollars for fist phase; IFAD to provide 60 million US dollars to finance it’s funding in six states, while NDDC is to contribute 30 million US dollars to finance its three states. “However, in May 2024, the Federal Government requested for 32 million US dollars from Borrowed Resources Access Mechanism(BRAM) to fill the financing gap.

“This gave rise to the additional financing aimed to extend LIFE-ND’s achievements in economic development and wealth creation by supporting agribusiness enterprises in a sustainable manner,” Ashoro said.

He said that the priority commodity and the their value chains for Delta are fisheries, oil palm processing, casava and poultry productions, adding that the project employed the incubator model to achieve results.

Ashoro said the project has also built physical structures, completed projects like earthen ponds, lock-up and open market stalls and cassava processing plants.

Others are drainages, mini poultry, planting of economic trees to curb environmental degradation as well as facilitated financing and insurance services for beneficiaries.

According to him, just like “Oga and Boy” or Master and Apprentice” the LIFE-ND Project adopted the model but coined it as the Agribusiness incubation model, where the incubator is the Master and the Incubatee is the Apprentice.

“In its first phase, the project trained 143 incubators, 4,373 incubatees with 28 high-performing incubatees upgraded to incubators in 10 participating Local Government Areas in Delta.

“It also created 4,275 enterprises and new jobs in cassava, oil palm, poultry and fish value chains created and over N2.75 billion gross income generated between 2020 and 2024 across the state’s commodity value chains.

“In the Additional Financing LIFE-ND project phase, 630 regular incubatees and 2,685 Business Development Service Beneficiaries have been selected to participate,”he said.

“But our major challenge is funding, so, we appeal to the state government to pay the outstanding counterpart fund. Also, low level of literacy in the rural communities, banks bureaucracy and poor access to loan are some of the impediments,” Ashoro said. (NAN) (www.nannews.ng).

IO/JPE

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Edited by Joseph Edeh

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