Lagos, August 7, 2017 - More than 50 delegates including senior government officials from the Ministries of Agriculture and Trade and Industry, representatives from agriculture and food research institutions, the private sector, farmers’ organizations, the civil and industrials convened in Lagos, Nigeria on 4^th of August 2017 to discuss how to accelerate private sector investment in Nigerian agriculture.

As part of the operationalization of the Country Agribusiness Partnership Framework (CAP-F) the Nigeria Private Sector Stakeholder Consultative meeting was organized by Grow Africa in partnership with the Sustainable Trade Initiative (IDH), and the Nigeria Agribusiness Group (NABG), it aimed at boosting private sector investment in various agricultural value chains in Nigeria.  It provided an opportunity for the national agriculture community to familiarize themselves with the Federal Government’s priorities and plans for the sector. The delegates also gained knowledge on the Government’s national agriculture investment plan. The meeting was also designed as a tool to enhance public/private dialogue and identify common solutions to attract private sector investment into agriculture in Nigeria.

For Mr William Asiko (Executif Director of Grow Africa) “Our objective is to capacitate NABG to undertake value chain analysis and develop business/investment cases out of this analysis.  We will then work with the private sector both domestic and international to match investors with those investment opportunities and help negotiate deals between Government, farmers and investors which can be announced/signed publicly during the annual Grow Africa Investment Forum”

At the margin of the meeting, Grow Africa represented by Mr William Asiko (Executif director) and Nigeria Agriculture Business Group (NABG) represented by Mr Sani Dangote ( the chairman) signed a Memorandum of understanding which outlined the areas of cooperation between the two organizations  to stimulate investment into Nigeria’ agriculture.

Both parties have identified policies reform, access to inputs, technology transfer and access to finance as zones of cooperation.

For Mr Dangote “there is an urgent need for private sector stakeholders in agriculture to work together towards growing Nigeria’s agriculture, diversifying from oil and gas dependency, encouraging agricultural industrialization, and creating an enabling environment for agribusiness to thrive. NABG strives to engage government at all levels in setting policy direction and regulatory reforms to enable sustainable inclusive socio-economic growth by creating systematic linkages between small, medium and large agribusiness enterprises”. 

About Grow Africa

Grow Africa works to increase private sector investment in agriculture, and accelerate the execution and impact of investment commitments. The aim is to enable countries to realise the potential of the agriculture sector for economic growth and job creation, particularly among farmers, women and youth. Grow Africa brokers collaboration between governments, international and domestic agriculture companies, and smallholder farmers in order to lower the risk and cost of investing in agriculture, and improve the speed of return to all stakeholders.

About the Nigeria Agri-business Group

NABG is an organized private sector platform working together to grow Nigeria’s agricultural economy, creating jobs and lifting millions out of poverty. NABG investment cuts across the value chain from input to output markets, export markets and consumer food manufacturing.

About the Sustainable Trade Initiative (IDH)

IDH works to convene companies, civil society organizations, governments in public-private sector partnerships to drive sustainability from niche to norm in mainstream markets of which in the case of partnership with Grow Africa focuses on the commodities in the agriculture value chain. These initiatives are geared towards delivering impact on sustainable development goals.