Business
Cassava Production: UNIDO Urges Improvement
Dr Kandeh Yumkella, Director-General, UN Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO), last week advised Nigeria to add value to cassava production to enhance industrial development.
He made the call when he paid a courtesy visit to the Minister of State for Commerce and Industry, Ms Josephine Tapgun, during his three days official visit to Nigeria.
The visits was a follow-up to the Africa Agri-Business and Agro-industries Conference held in Abuja in March.
Yumkella said Nigeria, being one of the largest producers of cassava in the world, consumes more than 90 per cent of it raw, rather than adding value to it.
“Nigeria was the highest producer of cassava in the world 10 year ago and even now, is still one of the largest producers, but more than 90 per cent of it is eaten raw,’’ he said.
Yumkella said Nigeria should emulate countries, such as Malaysia that produces large quantity of cassava, and manufactured products such as gum arabic, flour and ethanol for energy.
He noted that Nigeria was richly blessed in other agricultural products, such as groundnut, cocoa, coffee and meat products, which should be developed for industrialisation.
The UNIDO boss said that in the next 30 years, Nigeria’s population would increase to 300 million, and urged government to do everything to develop cassava to enable it to feed the people.
“Nigeria should advantage of the opportunities God has given it to feed its population,’’ he said.
Yumkella also called for the diversification of the country’s economy beyond oil and gas, while adding value to petroleum products on the downstream.
“Nigeria can be industrialised because it has the resources both financial and human,” he said.
Responding, Tapgun noted that energy was key, if the country must be industrialised.
She said government was doing everything possible to ensure that the challenge of power was effectively addressed, among other challenges.
The minister said the Council of Commerce and Industry had been given the mandate by government to ensure that Vision 20:2020 was workable for industrial development.
She also urged UNIDO to continue to support the ministry, both technically and financially, to ensure that its programmes for industrial development were successful.
Reports say that Yumkella, who inspected the ICT Centre, established by UNIDO in the ministry, gave certificates of completion on the use of computer and internet to the personnel who were trained in computer appreciation.
Cornerstone of Financial Services
A survey of more than 1 000 global finance leaders undertaken by digital payment network Ripple shows that 72% of respondents believe they need to offer a digital asset solution to remain competitive.
According to Ripple, leaders from the banking, fintech, corporate and asset management sector have made it clear that the “digital asset revolution is happening now”.
“Digital assets are quickly becoming a cornerstone of financial services, underpinned by progressive regulation, growing interest from Tier-1 banks, a steady consumer shift from banks to fintech providers, and booming stablecoin adoption,” Ripple says.
The survey was conducted in early 2026 and the findings released in March.
Stablecoin Boon or Bane?
Ripple has experienced significant success in the stablecoin sector since launching its Ripple USD (RLUSD) stablecoin in 2024.
With a market cap of $1.56 billion, it is considered a major regulated player in the market.
No doubt the platform was pleased to learn through its own survey that financial leaders were most bullish about stablecoins.
Roughly three-quarters of respondents believed they could boost cash-flow efficiency and unlock trapped working capital.
Ripple noted that finance leaders were thinking about stablecoins as more than “just a new way to execute payments”; instead, they viewed them as effective tools for treasury management.
In March 2026, Ripple began testing a new trade finance model built around RLUSD in a bid to increase the speed of cross-border payments.
The pilot initiative, developed alongside supply chain finance company Unloq [https://unloq.com], is running on the XRP Ledger inside a testing framework developed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
The Asian city-state is one of the platform’s biggest growth markets.
The idea behind the project is to see whether stablecoin-based settlement can streamline trade finance, too often hampered by reliance on intermediaries and slow reconciliation.
The only potential drawback is that if the initiative takes off, the Ripple to USD price could be negatively affected.
Ripple has always championed its native XRP token as a bridge asset, the “middleman” in the process of a financial institution turning dollars in the US into pounds in the UK, for example.
Ripple converts dollars into XRP and then back into pounds.
If RLUSD can do exactly the same thing, questions will be asked about XRP’s relevance.
That is a bridge Ripple will have to cross if it gets to that point.
Tokenisation Partners
Another interesting finding from Ripple’s survey is that most banks and asset managers are seeking tokenisation partners to help execute their strategies.
Some 89% of respondents said digital asset storage and custody were top priority. “Token servicing/lifecycle management also ranks highly for banks at 82%, while asset managers place greater emphasis on primary distribution at 80%,” Ripple found.
The survey also revealed that just more than half of fintechs and financial institutions want an infrastructure provider that can offer a “one-stop-shop solution”. This rose to 71% among corporate financial leaders.
Ripple attributes this to institutions and firms wanting uncomplicated, cohesive systems.
Infrastructure Rules
In its final analysis, Ripple says companies across the board are looking for partners and solutions that are “secure, compliant, battle-tested and that enable growth and execution”.
“The message is clear: infrastructure decisions made today will shape competitive positioning tomorrow.”
No surprise that this is precisely where Ripple is placing much of its focus.
