PIND Q3 July – September 2019 Progress Report

Furthermore, within the quarter under review, PIND engaged its service provider’s model to increase farmers outreach in aquaculture sector amongst the vulnerable groups. Facilitated by Kingdom Obuza, one of the aquaculture service providers, PIND collaborated with the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) to carry out a training program for “persons living with disability” (PWD) across the Niger Delta. The training aimed to build the capacity of the participants to build a livelihood on fish farming.

The participants were trained on best fishpond management practices as well as improved fish processing using the smoking kiln to expose them to the opportunities in fish processing as a business. A total of 315 participants (110 females) attended the training across 5 states: Bayelsa (45); Rivers (35); Akwa Ibom (35); Cross Rivers (35); Delta (35); Ondo (35); Edo (35); Imo (30) and Abia (30). Also partnering with MAC-JIM Foundation, best pond management practices and business skill training to 63 (40 male, 23 females) was imparted to youth in Bayelsa State.

On technical assistance, PIND engaged two program managers to provide support to Abia and Edo States in developing long-term strategic plans, leading to the inauguration of the technical committees by the two Executive Governors, to manage the planning processes of the long term development plans. Also within the quarter, PIND provided technical support to the development of agriculture policies in Delta, Edo, and Ondo States. The Ondo State agriculture policy has been finalized and is awaiting executive approval, while the Edo State agriculture policy has been finalized but has been embedded into the States’ central strategic work plan, which the governor is yet to approve.

PIND carried out an audit of the Market Development Project’s Monitoring and Results Measurement (MRM) system to ascertain its level of compliance with the Donor Committee for Enterprise Development (DCED) MRM standards, which provides an external assessment of the quality of our results measurement system. The result of the audit was positive having scored 85% on compulsory control points and 81% on recommended control points.

Last of all, on Peacebuilding, the Foundation’s Partners for Peace (P4P) Network built on its previous work to a self-sustaining membership organization, with 666 new members registered as peace agents, bringing the total number of new members in 2019 to 1,854. The new members were drawn from the establishment of sub-chapters by P4P State chapters in Abia with 102 new members, Bayelsa with 95 new members, Cross River with 183 new members, and Delta with 124, Edo with 79 new members and Ondo with 83 new members.

The Capacity Building Program works to build and strengthen capacities of local civil society organizations, business membership organizations and agriculture-focused service providers to operate efficiently and effectively to better serve the interest of their members and communities and to also support PIND and other development organizations to achieve their development objectives.

As a way of building capacity for local empowerment, through the CAPABLE initiative, PIND foundation equipped 23 development professionals (16 female), from 12 organizations, with skills on program monitoring and evaluation, moving the total number of persons trained in the year to 267 person. Proportionately, the effort improved their capacity to develop good M&E plans and frameworks as well as reporting appropriately.

Also, consorting with Conservation Alliance (a PIND cocoa value chain co-facilitator) to promote synergy among members of Cocoa sector business membership organizations (BMOs), the foundation facilitate a training program aimed at strengthening the group operations, cohesion and leadership capabilities of three cocoa farmers associations: Sunshine Cocoa Farmers’ Cooperative, Ondo State Cooperative Federation Farmers Limited (OSCFFL) and Tonikoko Multipurpose Farmers Union (TMFU). A total of 48 (including 10 female) participants from the three organizations participated in the training. Currently the membership of these BMOs has risen from about 30 to 1,000 members for each association. With this, the associations were able to complete a formal registration process with the State Ministry of Commerce and Industry.

Across all PIND projects in Quarter 3, 34% of the beneficiaries are women. This is as a result of the actions taken to implement PIND gender policy. Monthly gender moment to increase internal knowledge on gender mainstreaming and empowerment strategies; and implementation of a post International Women’s Day activities in Bayelsa and Delta States, were the two priority actions implemented in the reporting period. These, spurred increased adoption of Chorkor oven and improved agronomic practices that are increasing yield of farming and other businesses of 51 small-scale women farmers and entrepreneurs.

In quarter 3, PIND commissioned a survey to harvest more results of CAPABLE interventions in the Niger Delta region. The assessment among other objectives, focused on the perception of services delivered by CAPABLE organizations by the primary beneficiaries in communities where the organizations carry out community development interventions. Preliminary findings confirm that 22 organizations that accessed grants plausibly attributed ability to develop successful proposals to knowledge gained from CAPABLE training and mentorship facilitated by PIND. Furthermore, communities relayed positive and traceable effects of CAPABLE capacity strengthening project in their various communities.

The PIND media for development in the 3^rd quarter of 2019 employed the use of media as a tool for socio-economic development in the Niger Delta through video productions, media advocacy campaigns, media capacity building, and the implementation of the Access to Agricultural Information Intervention.

The organization built upon skills learned during the training workshops organized for 41 staff of PIND’s media partners, through mentoring of selected staff of partner media organizations, on program production and audience marketing. Four in-station mentorship sessions on program production and audience interactivity were conducted for 19 staff of Quest FM and 9 staff of Ray Power FM in Yenagoa. As a result of the mentorship sessions with Quest FM on program production, a program production template was developed to guide the production of the improved agricultural program ‘Back to Land’. The Ray Power FM Yenagoa and the Quest FM production teams were exposed to, and have adopted the production of roving reports which features the voices of the farmers recorded in the field as a Vox Populi, giving farmers representation and a sense of participation in the program. Thus, it became bare that there is a non-financial transactional relationship between the audience who consume information and the broadcaster who provides information. Furthermore, the 3^rd quarter, acquired media skills and knowledge of partakers, commanded stronger linkages between agricultural information market actors, farmers were able to engage with expert service providers who respond via radio to questions relating to the challenges farmers face in their farming businesses. The live questions and answer broadcast episode by Quest FM on the program ‘Back to Land’ caught the attention of two local government Chairmen in Delta State who responded via call-in to the program to respond to advocacy issues raised by the farmers. This exploit was as a result of PIND foundation’s continued facilitation of stronger linkage between three key actors of the agricultural information market system: the broadcaster, the audience and the media research firm.