Umuahia, June 4, 2022
The Livelihood Improvement Enterprises Project for the Niger-Delta has introduced a process known as Quickwin, to fast-track its objective of empowering 4,250 youths in agribusiness in Abia.
Speaking with newsmen in Umuahia, the Project Coordinator, Abia LIFE-ND, Dr Uchenna Onyeizu, said Quickwin is an emergency activity employed for the purpose of meeting up with the project objectives.
He explained that LIFE-ND is a project of the Federal Government designed in collaboration with the International Food and Agricultural Development (IFAD) and Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).
The coordinator said the project’s mandate is to build the capacities of its incubators (trainers) and incubatees (trainees) on various agric-enterprising skills and knowledge, especially in cassava and rice production, palm oil processing and poultry.
He said that the Quickwin provides a short time duration in meeting up with the IFAD target of building capacities and the economic empowerment of youths in agribusiness within the 12-year lifespan of the project.
He said LIFE-ND had engaged consultants who had gone to the selected communities, to assess the trainers that were selected for the Quickwin activity.
Onyeizu said: “We have earlier identified 100 communities, 10 in each of the 10 local government areas where we are intervening.
“In the course of implementing our activities we observed that the strategy we are deploying is not helping us in meeting up our project objectives.
“By the end of this project, we should have built capacity and empowered not less than 4,250 incubatees or beneficiaries.
“But we are almost at the middle of our project implementation, and we have not even gotten up to 20 to 30 per cent.
“It is not actually our fault for not being able to reach where we should. It is a combination of different factors and different challenges we face as a country.
“So we decided to reduce some of the processes we are passing through by identifying few value chain activities that could still give us the same result, which we call Quikwin.
“With Quikwin, we don’t need to pass through the process of relying on communities donating land for us or going through the legal processes of getting donated land ready.”
The Lead Consultant, Mr. Ernest Nwogu, said he and his team were consulted for a three-day activity of engaging the selected trainers.
“We have gone to the selected communities to assess the quality of those potential trainers already identified by LIFE-ND, that will anchor the Quickwin activity.
“Our job is to ensure that those trainers are competent enough with all the various indices that had been mapped out.
“It is to identity those who are capable and have the capacity of training the trainees that we will also bring on board,” he said.
The State Agribusiness Promotion Officer of LIFE-ND, Mr. Godwin Chukwuekezie, said that Quickwin was introduced in order to get many youths engaged in meaningful agriculture in a fast manner, while working within the implementation plan of the project.
“The engagement process is still the same, but this time around it is going to be fast and that is what youths want,” Chukwuekezie said.
He said that the project had advertised across communities and got over 3,000 who applied to be beneficiaries.
“That is why this three-day activity for the trainers is very important so that what is on paper can be authenticated right there on site.
“We go to communities to look at their facilities, whether they are qualified or enough to give necessary skills in modern agriculture to our teeming youths,” Chukwuekezie emphasised.
