PULLOUT OF WOMEN IN AGRICULTURE PROJECTS IN THE 2024 FEDERAL BUDGET

This Pull Out is produced to provide information to Small Scale Women Farmers of Nigeria (SWOFON) of provisions in the 2024 Federal Budget containing projects which may be of interest and benefit to them. Budgets are crafted and approved for the objective of implementing policies and plans. Ultimately, the budget is meant to touch lives, improve livelihoods, promote a higher standard of living, grow the economy and enhance development. For this to happen, policy makers in the executive and legislature, citizens, businesses, households, communities and their organizations need to collaborate to prepare as well as to implement the budget. But the beginning point in implementation is citizen’s access to information on what has been provided in the budget. Budget projects have designated beneficiaries and the proposed beneficiaries need to know the specific provisions and the qualifying criteria to become an actual beneficiary of public interventions.

They include provisions from the parent Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, its institutes and colleges; State House Headquarters; Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment; Secretary to the Government of the Federation. Others include Federal Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation; Federal Ministry of Education; Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare; Federal Ministry of Environment; Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment; Federal Ministry of Water Resources; Federal Ministry of Tourism; Federal Ministry of Budget and National Planning; Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation; Federal Ministry of Youth Development, and Federal Ministry of Women Affairs.

Key words used by the Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) in describing the projects include “empowerment”, “strategic training”, “training” and “capacity building”. Others are “provision”, “supply”, and “sensitization”, etc. This Pull Out therefore serves a couple of purposes. Beyond providing information, it will assist women farmers to hold MDAs to account for the expenditure of state resources. It is also an empowering tool, an advocacy tool based on empirical evidence that tells women farmers of the possibility of engaging MDAs at the budget preparation stage so that their voices can be heard in specific projects that will improve their productivity. It is a call for the full release and implementation of appropriated projects and in subsequent years, increased budgetary allocations to activities specifically targeted at Small Scale Women Farmers.

Small Scale Women Farmers Organization in Nigeria (SWOFON) in collaboration with Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) and the SPARK II Project of the International Budget Partnership presents this Pull Out as a tool for strategic engagement of the 2024 Federal Agriculture Budget