The Centre for Social Justice has published a budget review and half year budget implementation report for projects of interest to smallholder women farmers at the federal level and 5 focal states of Anambra, Oyo, Jigawa, Niger and Nasarawa

The review disaggregates the federal and the 5 focal states of Anambra, Oyo, Jigawa, Niger, Nasarawa vote for Agriculture for the 2022 financial year. The project has funding from the International Budget Partnership (IBP).
It reviews the division into recurrent and capital expenditure, the components of the recurrent expenditure, and the disaggregation into administrative and developmental capital expenditure.

It reviews the extent of implementation, up to the end of the second quarter of 2022, in terms of the release of the funds for the projects that have been identified to be of interest to small scale-women farmers.  It ends with a capital budget monitoring documentation from members of the Small Holder Women Farmers Organization in Nigeria (SWOFON) in the states.
There are still credibility challenges associated with the implementation of the budgetary votes to agriculture, especially in projects of interest to small-scale women farmers. The state governments need to work hard to close the gap. 

Our Lead Director, Eze Onyekpere noted that small-scale women farmers constituted 60 per cent of the farming population and produced 70 percent of food consumed nationally and there was need for an improved budgetary investment for smallholder women farmers, saying this would aid agriculture value chain.

“All plans and policies are based on budget and there are several plans and policies which have shown the need for investment for small-scale medium farmers.’’

It is therefore important that funds appropriated for smallholder women farmers go to them directly and not diverted into wrong hands.
In the proposed 2023 federal budget, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development presents an interesting case study. Year after year, the same kind of provision is made and at the end of the year, there are no clear deliverables. There is a vote for the provision and installation of solar-powered streetlights in rural communities in the 6 geo-political zones at N849.877million; construction of feeder roads in rural communities in the 6 geo-political zones costing N2.613bn. Where are these projects located? This kind of vote provides opportunities for massive corruption considering that budget monitors cannot just wake up and start going across the federation in search of projects without location.  Another vote in the sum of N14.809bn is for multilateral/bilateral tied loans – rural access and agricultural marketing projects. The RAAMP project has been ongoing for so many years. Can Nigerians get an account of what has been achieved with the loans and the counterpart funding from the budget? The usual value chain provisions are made but they are all hanging and have no clear deliverables.