FG, IFAD Begin 13th VCDP Supervision Mission as Programme Approaches Completion

The Federal Government and the International Fund for Agricultural Development have commenced the 13th Joint Supervision Mission of the Value Chain Development Programme, with stakeholders commending the project's performance while urging measures to sustain its gains as it approaches completion.

The mission was inaugurated at an inception workshop in Abuja and is scheduled to run from 12 October to 6 November 2026. It will assess the programme's implementation and financial performance, review compliance with previous recommendations and evaluate preparedness for completion.

Stakeholders acknowledged VCDP's contributions to Nigeria's rice and cassava value chains, particularly in improving agricultural productivity, expanding processing and storage infrastructure, strengthening market access and supporting rural livelihoods. The Director of the Federal Department of Development Partners Projects, Dr Emmanuel Oladipo Akogun, said the programme remained broadly on track, with overall implementation rated satisfactory and more than 98 percent of its outreach target achieved.

He, however, warned that the remaining implementation period is critical, and identified delays in fund disbursement, procurement and contract processing, gaps in counterpart funding, poor sequencing of activities and financial-management challenges as issues requiring urgent attention.

A programme in its endgame

VCDP has scaled from six to nine states through additional financing, extending support to rural households involved in rice and cassava production and processing. The nine participating states are Anambra, Benue, Ebonyi, Enugu, Kogi, Nasarawa, Niger, Ogun and Taraba. For a programme approaching completion, the supervision mission is less about adding new activity than about consolidating what exists and making it durable after donor support ends.

That is the harder task. Infrastructure built under a programme needs a maintenance plan; farmer organisations need to become commercially viable rather than dependent on project facilitation; and commodity aggregation centres need buyers. IFAD Country Director Mohamed El-Ghazaly said the mission would focus on resolving outstanding challenges, strengthening accountability and establishing practical arrangements to sustain impact beyond the programme's lifespan.

The financing bottleneck

The most candid warnings came on money. The Director of International and Economic Relations at the Federal Ministry of Finance said delays in fund disbursement and weak compliance with counterpart-funding obligations could undermine implementation and hurt the rural households that depend on agriculture. That is a familiar pattern in Nigerian donor-backed programmes: the design is sound, but the cash flow stalls, and momentum is lost in the gap between appropriation and release.

Sustaining the gains

The emerging consensus at the workshop pointed toward a transition from project-supported farming to commercially viable models that connect smallholders to reliable markets and reduce dependence on subsidies. The National Programme Coordinator, Dr Fatima Aliyu, emphasised that sustaining VCDP's achievements will require strong federal and state ownership, functional farmer organisations and continued access to financial services. The mission's real value will be whether its recommendations carry named institutions and deadlines — and whether those deadlines are met.