In its quest to ameliorate the high cost of living especially for the less privileged and vulnerable groups, two Nigerian mega NGOs, FUND-YES Cooperative (a project of Youths Off The Street Initiative) and multi-life savers for the less-privileged people, have jointly offered a way out of the acute food crisis across the country.
This they have done by creating the FOOD4ALL Initiative, whose aim is to finance, technically support, and build a network of 40 million family-based smallholder farmers and food entrepreneurs through its cooperative agri-food entrepreneurship program tagged “One-Family-One-Farmer Scheme.
In order to globally generate and mobilise the funds needed to successfully implement the FOOD4ALL Initiative, the FOOD4ALL Fundraising Campaign was launched in Lagos penultimate Saturday at the prestigious Radisson Blu, located at Ozumba Mbadiwe Way, Victoria Island.
The kick-off ceremony of the FOOD4ALL Fundraising Campaign was performed by Her Excellency, Ambassador (Dr) Josephine Ojiambo, a top diplomat who served in various top executive positions with the Government of Kenya, the United Nations, and the Commonwealth of Nations.
Dr Ojiambo is a high-profile and highly celebrated Diplomat who served as Deputy Secretary-General of the Commonwealth of Nations; she was Kenya’s Ambassador to the United Nations; she was the Chief of the Executive Board and External Relations of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA); she remains a top Executive Official of Rotary International and serves currently, as the Official Representative of Rotary International to the United Nations, specifically UNICEF and UNEP.
At the level of the Commonwealth and the United Nations, Ambassador Ojiambo has been deeply engaged with a range of significant national, African, and global issues. Ambassador Ojiambo sits on the Governing Boards of several influential international charities, foundations, NGOs, advisory groups, and think tanks.
FOOD4ALL Fundraising Campaign is designed to raise, generate and mobilise funds globally for the implementation of the FOOD4ALL Initiative through its One-Family-One-Farmer Scheme, whose aim is to finance youth, women, and other smallholders and family farmers, as well as food entrepreneurs.
Its overall goal is to create, finance, and build a national grassroots network of twenty million smallholder farmers and food entrepreneurs.
These efforts are targeted towards achieving Nigeria’s food security while tackling the ongoing food crisis, chronic unemployment, household poverty, and economic hardship with a view to growing Nigeria into a prosperous economy. The FOOD4ALL Fundraising Campaign targets to raise Six Billion Dollars (US$6 Billion) for the execution of the FOOD4ALL Initiative and the One-Family-One-Farmer Scheme between 2024 – 2027.
Ojiambo, who called for global support and partnership for the FOOD4ALL Fundraising Campaign, said “I urge global donors and development partners to give their full support to the FOOD4ALL Fundraising Campaign. Nigerians both home and across the diaspora must participate in this nation-building effort.
“You all must invest in agricultural and food value chains, both in the startups and business growth. What is important is to add your own value in different ways. As you carry out these investments, millions of jobs are created, especially for youths and women, as a practical step towards mitigating unemployment and eradicating household poverty while achieving food security and making quality and healthy foods available and affordable.
“Governments at the federal and state levels must get involved in this programme, as a matter of national priority and urgent necessity”, Ojiambo remarked.
While leading the unveiling prayer of the FOOD4ALL Fundraising Campaign, Reverend Father Ejike Mbaka, a popular Nigerian catholic cleric sought global support for the FOOD4ALL Fundraising Campaign.
He also stressed the need for Nigerian youths to be agriculturally engaged, as the most viable means of generating mass employment, in addition to achieving food security.
“It is a known fact that a hungry man is an angry man and an angry man is a dangerous man. This is why we must not allow the ongoing acute hunger crisis to continue”, Mbaka said
“What does it take to give our people quality food? It is difficult today for most Nigerian families to afford gari, let alone rice. Yet Nigeria’s tens of millions of hectares of fertile farmlands and its tens of millions of unemployed youths are wasting away. FOOD4ALL Initiative is the solution we need. It is the only way to fix Nigeria’s food crisis.
“I have earlier donated 2000 hectares, I am giving an additional 1000 hectares and then another 470 hectares, which make a total of 3470 hectares. I am 100% committed to the FOOD4ALL Initiative and its implementation. I am already breeding not less than 500,000 fish on my farm. This is the right way to go if Nigeria must continue to exist”, Mbaka said.
On his own part, Comrade Kennedy Iyere, the Chief Promoter of the FOOD4ALL Fundraising Campaign, urged Nigerians to fully commit themselves to the implementation of the FOOD4ALL Initiative.
According to him, it will be unwise at this point to fold our hands and do nothing about the worrisome food crisis, unemployment, household poverty and economic hardship presently experienced by millions of ordinary Nigerians.
