Oxfam's work in Nigeria in depth

In Nigeria, Oxfam’s focus is on livelihoods, agriculture, emergency response and promoting women's rights.

The context

Nigeria is rich in oil, gas, and other natural resources, but remains among countries in world with the lowest socio-economic indicators related to poverty, industrialisation and access to basic health, education, water, and other essential services. Despite the recent transition from 16 years of military rule, which has seen general elections in 1999, 2003, and 2007, the country faces tremendous challenges to sustained responsive, transparent and accountable governance.

Oxfam began working in Nigeria in 1965.  During the Nigerian Civil War (1967-70) we provided humanitarian assistance to both sides in the conflict.  In 1974, Oxfam closed its programme in Nigeria as the war ended and increased resources for development became available from large-scale exploitation of oil reserves in the Niger Delta Region.

In late 2001, Oxfam re-established its programme in Nigeria to support efforts to address the rising incidence of poverty and to respond to the increasing importance of Nigeria’s political, economic and social contributions to the development of West Africa and the continent.  In more than six years under the new programme, Oxfam has been a key partner in bringing people and organisations together to engage governments and institutions in promoting good governance and programmes that address the needs of the poor, particularly women and those engaged in rural agriculture.

Between 2001 and 2006, our work was focused on four areas: agricultural livelihoods, including increased productivity and access to markets; fair trade at both the commodities level and in international agreements with multilaterals such as the European Union, World Trade Organisation; and revenue transparency in the oil extractive industry at national level and with state and local governments in the Niger Delta.

Over the past few years, Nigeria has experienced a growing sense of urgency to realise its potential to meet the basic needs of its people and also be a leading country on pro-poor global change. In an effort to align our key areas for intervention and support with the country’s priorities, Oxfam has developed a five-year National Change Strategy (2008-2013) that aims to support civil society-government engagement at different levels of government. This is also intended to reflect Nigeria’s position as an emerging power whose actions have impact beyond its borders, on the lives of poor people in West Africa and the broader continent.

Following the global financial crisis and other considerations regarding organisational repositioning, the National Change Strategy approved in 2008 has been amended to streamline the programme for effectiveness. The new country strategy will run from 2009 to 2014.

This new country strategy is an Agriculture Support Programme (ASP), within the context of livelihoods, and with a focus on small-scale agriculture in general, and small-scale farmers in particular. This involves:

• A programme of direct intervention support focused on small-scale farmers, delivered under the project title: ‘Strengthening the livelihoods of small-scale farmers’
• An advocacy and campaigning programme around facilitating the engagement of small-scale farmers with governance (delivered under two projects: ‘Promoting sustainable small-scale agriculture for food security and economic justice’ and ‘Improving women’s leadership and effectiveness in agricultural governance’)

Oxfam is also running a programme to improve emergency response and disaster risk reduction integration within our work, as well as a gender justice project titled: Raising Her Voice (RHV).

How is Oxfam helping?

Strengthening the livelihoods of small-scale farmers

This three-year project co-funded with the European Commission aims to improve the livelihoods of 6,000 male and female small-scale farmers in Benue, Nasarawa, Plateau, Kano, and Katsina in the middle belt and northern parts of Nigeria.

The project recognises opportunities to leverage the important resources of the private sector as a way of making markets work for the poor. Key opportunities are being identified for partnership with the private sector to promote increased agricultural productivity, value addition, competitiveness and marketing of key agricultural products.  The project works with farmers, government, private sector and parliaments on policy reforms, increased investment and budget performance for better support services and increased agricultural productivity and competitiveness.

Advocacy and campaigning on the rights of small-scale farmers

Promoting sustainable small-scale agriculture for food security and economic justice

This programme aims to facilitate the engagement of small-scale farmers with governance and aligns with Oxfam International’s Economic Justice Campaign which is being implemented in Nigeria, one of the ten focus countries for this  global campaign.

The campaign has been designed, developed, and is being implemented in Nigeria as the Voices For Food Security (VFS) campaign. It is as a national campaign, built around organisations of small-scale farmers, the civil society partners in the EC co-financed livelihoods project, some Oxfam Novib partners, as well as other strategic national and international NGOs with a mandate and or programme on agriculture and food security. A campaigning consortium of these partners, allies and supporters has been established known as the VFS Consortium. Through the strategic relationships established in the campaign, the work around support to small-scale agriculture/farmers is being amplified across the country.

The campaign’s overall goal is around improved agriculture investment, and it has four objectives. These are:

• To reinforce the institutional capacity of small-scale farmers’ organisations in Nigeria to engage in policy processes
• Increased quantity and quality of investment in agriculture, targeting the Maputo declaration of 10% of national budgets to be committed to agriculture, but also the letter and spirit of that declaration which commits to prioritising investment on small scale agriculture
• Enabling policy, institutional and legislative environment for food security, in particular working towards the harmonisation of national policy framework on agriculture and food security, enabling legislation on right to food and food security, ensuring the insertion of a right to food clause in the constitution, and the establishment of a National Agency for Small Scale Agriculture Development (NASSAD)
• Facilitating women’s leadership and effectiveness in agriculture – its processes, institutions and governance.

The campaign currently covers 25 of Nigeria’s 36 states through alignment and linkages with other networks.

Improving women’s leadership and effectiveness in agricultural governance

This programme supports efforts to increase women’s leadership and participation in decision-making at all levels of agricultural governance and production through building women’s skills and capacity to assume leadership positions in agricultural associations and governance.

Actions at national, state and local levels include in-depth research, knowledge dissemination and support for policy debates that promote fair agricultural legal framework that favours women’s effective leadership. We also work with gender advocates, research institutions, women’s agricultural machineries and government institutions to help lobby for change.

The project supports effective civic advocacy and campaigning for women’s leadership in agriculture through informed research and policy analysis, and the use of media. We are supporting a campaign for land reform to benefit female farmers, and promoting linkages of organisations of women in agriculture to input supply and markets. Our other work includes support for capacity and skill building for leaders of organisations of female farmers to help engage the media to promote gender issues in agriculture and support mobilisation of small-scale women farmer organisations. We also consciously work to engage relevant government agencies for support in the market and in the agriculture production and distribution processes in general.

Emergency response and disaster risk reduction

This project aims to strengthen Oxfam’s support for humanitarian preparedness and response in Nigeria through promoting stronger co-ordination of efforts of all humanitarian actors at national, state, and local levels. Working with local partners, Oxfam will maintain an up-to-date Humanitarian Contingency Plan developed through stakeholder reviews and annual reflection meetings. We also seek to build the capacity of partners and allies to improve programme resilience to emergency situations and monitor potential problems related to food and income security, natural disasters and conflicts.

We aim to improve emergency responses through the co-ordination of government, NGOs, and international agency preparedness and relief, including support from Oxfam.

Raising Her Voice

Raising Her Voice (RHV) is a portfolio of projects in 17 countries across the world that focuses on improving governance and transparency by recognising and increasing the significant contribution poor women can make to public life and in promoting their own rights. The project employs four approaches to reach its objectives: networking, lobbying and advocacy with poor women activists; working with public/traditional institutions and decision making forums; empowering and building capacity of the Civil Society Organisations.

In Africa, the Raising Her Voice project is being implemented in eight countries including Nigeria with the same goal of strengthening national legislation, adequate budgeting and implementation of the African Union Protocol on Women’s Rights through community mobilisation and advocacy activities. Oxfam is supporting Women’s Rights Advancement and Protection Alternative (WRAPA) to work with the African Union, the Nigerian Government and Civil Society Organisations in Nigeria to ultimately enable the domestication of the Protocol in Nigeria by 2012.

The project is funded by DFID and UNDP.

Climate Change adaptation work

Oxfam is integrating climate change adaptation work into our general programming in Nigeria. This includes undertaking research on climate change adaptation among small-scale farmers and in small-scale agriculture. When fully developed, the project will support and facilitate sustainable climate change adaptation and mitigation processes by small-scale farmers, and campaign for state support for such processes.

Engaging with government

In Nigeria, Oxfam has become a key player in strategic foras and platforms linking government and its institutions to key stakeholders. We play lead roles in the Food Security Thematic Group for Nigeria which is chaired by the FAO and supported by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Water Resources. This thematic group is developing a national food security response plan and strategy for Nigeria. In addition, Oxfam leads in the development of three key intervention projects and has also been invited to lead the advocacy-working group.

We are also a leading member in the Donor Co-ordination Group on Gender, which is jointly facilitated by the Federal ministry of women’s affairs and UNIFEM.

 

Last updated: December 2009