CGIAR Response to Request for Evidence on UK-Nigeria Development Partnership

CGIAR is an international network of 15 agricultural research centres with more than 9,000 scientists worldwide working towards a food-secure future for all. CGIAR’s work is focused on lower-income countries where food security is particularly at risk. Since 1967, CGIAR has enjoyed a longstanding partnership with the Government of Nigeria through its national Agricultural Research Council and other key national institutions including universities and advanced research centres, mainly through the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, a CGIAR centre headquartered in Ibadan, Nigeria with operations in many countries of sub-Saharan Africa. The partnership has produced some considerable achievements. For example, strong collaboration between the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture and the Federal Government led to the production of bread with 10% inclusion of cassava flour, reducing wheat imports significantly. Subsequently the Oyo State Government lauded efforts by researchers at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in successfully producing bread with 40% cassava flour that has similar eating qualities as 100% wheat flour bread. At the time, it was estimated that the innovation, if adopted, would enable Nigeria to save about $252 million annually, and improve the livelihoods of cassava farmers in the country. This food technology innovation was heralded as a major step that would address food insecurity, create jobs especially for the rural youth, and improve incomes.

In addition to Ibadan, IITA has stations at Abuja, Onne (Port Harcourt) and Kano. The centre also hosts 4 CGIAR centres: Africa Rice, ICRISAT and the Alliance of Bioversity and CIMMYT. The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) leads a Nigeria Strategy Support Program (NSSP) that has supported evidence-based policymaking in agriculture and rural development by working closely with Nigeria’s government and international partners to strengthen policies, strategies, and development plans.

Nigeria is part of the regional constituency for Sub Saharan Africa on CGIAR’s System Council where it is represented by the Executive Secretary, Agricultural Research Council for Nigeria. Nigeria funds CGIAR through annual contributions to the International Institute of Tropical Research. The Government of Nigeria is investing in CGIAR science through bilateral support to the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, totalling around £7.5M over the past 3 years (2022-24). Through this well-established partnership and national network, CGIAR has close experience of the development environment in Nigeria, specifically in the agricultural sector.

In 2024, IITA developed a strategy reorienting the focus of the organisation towards climate resilient agriculture and improved health and nutrition. Extensive consultations with national partners informed the strategy designed to make food systems in Africa more inclusive, more nutritious, more profitable, and more resilient.

Key development challenges:

In a world facing unprecedented challenges, from climate change to food scarcity, transforming food systems has never been more critical. Millions of smallholder farmers face an urgent challenge: how to sustain their livelihoods in the face of changing weather patterns, poor market access, and declining soil fertility. These farmers not only feed their families but also contribute to Nigeria’s food security. Enhancing climate adaptation preparedness in sub-Saharan Africa’s agricultural sector is key where farmers are contending with increasingly frequent episodes of extreme drought, flooding, pest and disease infestations, and poor soil fertility. Underutilized legume crops, as identified by the Vision for Adapted Crops and Soils (commonly known as VACS) initiative, could enable greater adaptation to the climate related-challenges smallholder farmers face.

An example of UK responding to climate adaptation needs is through the UK-CGIAR Science Centre (funded by UK International Development and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC)), which is working on a new project with UK (Rothamsted Research) and Nigerian partners focusing on climate adaptation preparedness in agricultural systems in sub-Saharan Africa’s savannah regions. Bayero University Kano (BUK) is the national partner for the project. The University of Nottingham and the University of Warwick are also project partners.

The research teams will investigate the role of climate-smart agronomic practices and cropping systems within the scope of VACS, aligning with CGIAR’s new Sustainable Farming Science Program. The research will prioritise studying crops identified by the VACS initiative, including Bambara groundnut and pigeon pea, working in northern regions of Ghana and Nigeria, where cereal-legume cropping systems are dominant.

The main development challenges CGIAR has experienced are the following:

1. Climate Change and Environmental Degradation
   Climate change has intensified issues like desertification, flooding, and erratic rainfall patterns. These environmental challenges reduce arable land and crop yields, exacerbating food insecurity.
    
2. Insecurity and Land Conflicts (see CGIAR study – link below)
   Insecurity, including conflicts between farmers and herders, disrupts farming activities and displaces communities. These conflicts, often fueled by competition over land and water resources, hinder agricultural development. Instability has increased the number of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) who need support for the reestablishment of agriculture and also for livelihoods.
    
3. Urbanisation
   Nigeria is rapidly urbanising and creating challenges for peri-urban agriculture and effective supply chains for nutritious foods.
    
4. Gender Disparities
   Women constitute a significant portion of the agricultural workforce but face challenges such as limited access to land, credit, and training. Addressing gender disparities is crucial for inclusive agricultural development.
    
5. Limited Access to Finance and Modern Inputs
   Smallholder farmers often struggle to obtain credit due to high interest rates and lack of collateral. This financial constraint limits their ability to invest in quality seeds, fertilizers, and modern farming equipment, thereby affecting productivity.
    

Addressing these challenges requires a multifaceted approach, including investment in infrastructure, climate-resilient farming practices, financial inclusion, conflict resolution, and gender-sensitive policies. By tackling these issues, Nigeria can unlock the full potential of its agriculture sector, ensuring food security and economic prosperity.

In 2023, CGIAR conducted a policy workshop in Nigeria to bring together policymakers, researchers, and representatives from the private sector and civil society to discuss how to advance food systems resilience amid crises while empowering women and youth. A CGIAR research initiative on Fragility, conflict and migration(launched in April 2023 and first presented in Nigeria on May 11) focuses on building climate resilience, promoting gender equity, and fostering social inclusion—in Nigeria and other countries. The need for further research on these big themes emerged clearly from the stakeholders in the workshop. The group addressed big picture questions to inform CGIAR’s fragility, conflict and migration research in Nigeria and elsewhere going forward: How should Nigeria address food security challenges, exacerbated by the impacts of climate change? What are the best strategies for anticipating shocks and strengthening resilience in the world where compounding crises have become a new normal? And what role does empowering women and youth play in ramping up resilience to shocks and creating more robust agrifood policies?

The CGIAR National Policies and Strategies for Food, Land and Water Systems Transformation (NPS) Nigeria Initiative Lead and Country Program Leader, IFPRI-Nigeria, described the CGIAR approach of building policy coherence, especially between federal and state levels, by integrating policy tools for state-level analysis and responding to policy demand and crisis through a community of policy practice in Nigeria. This approach can ensure that research is demand-driven, responds to crises in real time, and reaches those poised to incorporate it into decision-making.

Topical sessions on “Anticipating Shocks and Strengthening Resilience,” “Empowering Women and Youth,” and “Strengthening Agrifood Policies.” generated the following big ideas with consensus on the need for more research and evidence to put those ideas into practice:

• Strengthening early warning systems can help vulnerable households withstand crises and improve resilience. For example, one project from Northern Nigeria found that a one-time lump sum cash transfer to climate-vulnerable households before a climate shock significantly increased households’ investments in climate resilience and reduced negative coping strategies compared to giving vulnerable households the same cash transfer after a shock. Workshop participants raised the need for more evidence to understand how these types of anticipatory actions could become sustainable and how they could interact with insurance.
• Addressing conflict through policies and interventions is central to key development outcomes including agricultural investments, effective land use, and household food security. Research is needed to understand why conflicts arise, who they affect most, how climate change can exacerbate their effects, and what works to mitigate their harmful effects. IFPRI researchers shared their findings on these questions and recommendations for region-specific interventions and policies. Workshop participants discussed the need for more evidence on linkages between conflict and the food system, as well as pairing of data sources on each; innovative approaches for climate monitoring; and research on linkages between gender and security.

• Breaking down harmful gender norms is essential to everything from ensuring women influence the policy decisions affecting their lives and livelihoods to integrating women in markets and value chains. The need to focus on women’s inclusion in both the public and private sectors came through in both the research presented and the accompanying discussion groups. Participants discussed the potential for greater women’s inclusion in seed markets and how to ensure that agricultural interventions worked for women. Presentations from IFPRI researchers offered tools and ideas for how to raise women’s inclusion in financial services, measure women’s voice in policymaking, and increase women’s voice and agency in their communities.
• Ensuring that youth are economically empowered and that we understand their decision making is critical for navigating crises and building resilience. One study presented at the workshop, for example, analyzed how youth make decisions about rural-rural and rural-urban migration using remote sensing data – and the implications for regional development strategies. Workshop participants also raised the need to better understand how to integrate youth into value chains and create meaningful employment opportunities in the face of the climate crisis.
• Bolstering value chains through better public-private coordination came up as essential for resilience. Seed markets specifically were a big topic of conversation, and both researchers and stakeholders highlighted how better targeting of seed certification could support adoption and how to promote adoption of climate-tolerant seeds.
•  Identifying good ideas ready for scaling in crisis-affected contexts is key for long-term resilience. Yet, it can be difficult to know which ideas will work where, and how to select among alternatives when resources are constrained. 

Guiding Principles for UK Development Engagement:

1. International Partnerships: CGIAR’s impact across Africa is substantially amplified through strategic partnerships with national governments. By providing its expertise to national planning processes, CGIAR translates research into actionable policies.
    
2. Science-based solutions: The UK is a leader in supporting global climate adaptation efforts and an R&D hub that provides the world with climate-smart solutions in agriculture, biodiversity, and technology. Together, CGIAR and the UK deliver solutions for climate-resilient agriculture and environmental protection worldwide through the UK CGIAR Science Center.
    
3. Integrate Sustainable Farming Practices: Address key challenges in agri-food systems by fostering efficient production of nutritious foods and safeguarding the environment to create fair employment opportunities, and simultaneously tackle climate change, soil degradation, pests, diseases, and desertification.

4. Enhance resilience: includes adaptation of crops through breeding with respect to not only drought and heat but also pests and diseases which are changing with respect to incidence and severity due to climate change.
    
5. Use of digital tools: including AI for disease recognition, surveys and surveillance.
    
6. Diversification of crops: Key crops bred in Nigeria are cassava, yam, banana/plantain, maize, soybean and cowpea. Resilience is derived from more diverse systems including the greater use of ‘opportunity crops’ including Bambara groundnut and cowpea supported through the Vision for Adapted Crops and Soils that CGIAR and UK partners are working on. The development of effective and widely deployed seed systems for both grain and clonal crops is an important part of CGIAR’s breeding work.
    
7. Improved nutrition: A recent survey led by IITA has shown the high levels of anaemia and micronutrient deficiencies in young children and mothers. Agriculture has a major role to play as part of a multi- pronged approach to addressing this.

8. Improved soil fertility: Soil degradation and poor access to fertilisers  are a major constraint to crop production in Nigeria. The recent development of a Regional Soil Health and Fertiliser Hub for West Africa and the Sahel involves many partners including IITA in a coordinated response.  

9. Inclusive approach: Livelihoods for youth, women, disadvantaged and marginalised groups from entrepreneurship and agri-business. Youth-led agribusiness is a high priority to develop added value products and to create employment opportunities. Approaches are being taken to de-risk lending for small agribusinesses and to develop the capabilities of youth to successfully develop bankable business proposals, particularly for women.

In addition to more sustainable farming methods and reducing the use of pesticides, CGIAR contributes to global prosperity by underpinning more rapid innovation and technology adoption by farmers, essential to boosting productivity of agriculture and economic growth more generally. There is a strong body of evidence demonstrating the impact that CGIAR has had on agriculture productivity, with support from the UK government.

Reference Docs:

1. IITA’s 2024 – 2030 Strategy: Science, Research and Delivery Innovations for African Agrifood System Transformation
2. CGIAR Research and Innovation Strategy
3. CGIAR Impacts in Agrifood Systems: Evidence and Learnings from 2022–2024
4. CGIAR Study on How climate-induced conflict is shaping rural Nigeria: Link to news story
5. https://www.ifpri.org/blog/six-big-ideas-advance-food-systems-resilience-nigeria-bringing-cgiar-initiatives-together/