Ministry Holds Green Alternative Retreat

The Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD), in collaboration with Synergos (a global non-profit organisation that fights poverty and its effects), held a two-day strategy retreat for directors in the ministry to unlock institutional effectiveness for the new agriculture sector road-map-the Green Alternative (GA).
According to a statement obtained by The Tide recently in Port Harcourt, the strategy retreat discussed options and provided guidance on the development of a post 2016/Pre 2017 – 2019 framework for the GA in Abuja recently.
In his address at the event, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD), Chief Audu Ogbeh, charged the directors to make Nigeria, a major player in the agriculture sector that could boast of $50 billion annually from the sector alone.
Ogbeh further urged the participants to “take the matter seriously; get to work and do your best to make Nigeria great again”.
He opined that clear targets be set for each department in order to promote a culture of accountability.
Permanent Secretary of the Ministry, Dr Shehu Ahmed, in his review of the ministry and its parastatals, stressed that the overriding purpose of the retreat was to showcase the power and effectiveness of working as a team to drive the GA.
He added that the next of such retreat will hold along with parastatals of the ministry for better synergy, drive, delivery and results.
Departmental alignment as the building block for delivery of the Green Alternative was stressed at the retreat.
To this end, every department in the ministry made presentations on their mandates and plans for 2017, with focus on alignment with the GA.
The strategy retreat also witnessed presentations on sustainable change, systems approach, public private sector engagements and agriculture sector baseline data monitoring and evaluation framework development.
Resource persons were drawn from the retreat partner (Synergos), the academia and the ministry.