The President of the African Development Bank (AFDB), Dr Akinwumi Adesina, says the $280 million approved by the bank would be used to encourage Nigerian youths to go into agro-business.
Adesina, represented by Dr Chiji Ojukwu, a Director in AFDB, stated this on Tuesday in Ibadan at the African Youth Agripreneurs (AYA) Forum organised by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Ibadan.
Adesina said with International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) training initiative and the financial support from AFDB, more youths would be interested to go into agribusiness. Furthermore, AFDB is working with 33 countries to give assistance to youths in agriculture with Zambia, Sudan, GR Congo, Cameroon and Nigeria already given necessary assistance in 2016.
He said that the Bank was targeting 37,000 youths in Nigeria who would be given $50,000 each as support in agriculture business.
According to Dr. Akinwumi Adesina,
“The $280m that we have approved for Nigeria cannot be enough; we need $1.8 billion to accommodate the 37,000 youths.
This is why we are giving 80 per cent of the money to commercial banks so that they can lend from their own balance sheet and we expect that every dollar we put in would generate five dollars.’’
Adesina said the programme was for young graduates who could easily be trained on agriculture.