The Centre has published an in-depth review of the 2022 budget implementation report for Agriculture in five Nigerian states of Anambra, Jigawa, Nasarawa, Niger, and Oyo.
The reported that Anambra State recorded a change in the state’s leadership, which led to the revision of the 2022 budget. However, despite the increased total budget size, the allocation to the Agriculture sector decreased from N2,698,260,491 to N1,923,039,173. This decrease implies that the government did not prioritize Agriculture. 

Furthermore, the Agriculture sector’s vote represents only 1.13% of the revised budget, which falls short of the Maputo Declaration benchmark of 10%. The benchmark suggests that the vote for Agriculture should have been N16.962billion, and the variance from the benchmark is in the sum of N15.039billion.
The disaggregation of the Agriculture vote shows that recurrent expenditure got 16%, while capital expenditure got a vote of 84%. The total value of the projects of interest to small-scale women farmers in the revised budget is in the sum of ₦1,907,550,000, which is a total of 1.73% of overall budget capital expenditure.

The report further highlights that overall Anambra State capital expenditure’s performance was 54.07% at the end of Quarter 4 2022. Also, revenue’s performance was 65.14%, while total budgetary expenditure was 58.20%.
For projects of interest to small-scale women farmers, only 25.3% of proposed expenditure was incurred, with the Ministry of Agriculture, Mechanisation, Processing and Export recording 42.1% implementation, Fisheries and Aquaculture Development Agency recording 1.3% implementation, Agriculture Development Project recording 6.3%, Ministry of Road Construction, Road Furniture and Maintenance recording 0%, Ministry of Social Welfare, Children and Women Affairs recording 0%, and Forestry Department also recording 0%.

The report recommends that the state government needs to work hard to close the gap associated with credibility challenges associated with the implementation of the budgetary votes to agriculture, especially in projects of interest to small-scale women farmers.

It is also essential to note that it is not clear whether Anambra State prepares an Annual Cash Plan and a Budget Disbursement Schedule. If they are prepared, it is also not clear that they are followed. The two documents will introduce an empirical approach to the management and disbursement of available funds.
At the time of producing this report, the actuals for agriculture recurrent expenditure and overall expenditure were not available. The report suggests that the Anambra State government needs to prioritize agriculture and allocate more funds to the sector to meet the Maputo Declaration benchmark. Also, there is a need to improve the implementation of projects, especially for small-scale women farmers.
To read the full report covering the budget for agriculture and full year budget implementation report of other states, please click on the following link to download