Minister of Trade and Investment, Olusegun Aganga

The Federal Government has inaugurated Implementation Committees on the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) Country Programme for Nigeria.

The committees, which comprise representatives from various relevant Ministries, Departments, Institutions and the Private Sector, were inaugurated by the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Trade and Investment, Mr. Dauda Kigbu, recently in Abuja.

Inaugurating the committee, Kigbu charged the members to see the job as service to the nation and urged them to make efforts to achieve the objectives of the country programme for the benefit of the nation.

Kigbu said the UNIDO Country Programme was a technical cooperation between federal government of Nigeria and UNIDO, which would cover a period of 4 years (2009-2012).
He pointed out that the Country Programme has been reviewed, revised and extended for a period of 18 months to enable it accommodate the Economic Transformation Agenda of the government and the ministry’s expanded mandate as well as the National Industrial Plan.

Kigbu said that the objective of the Country Programme was to promote industrialisation and help Nigeria achieve its goal of becoming one of the 20 largest economies by the year 2020.

In his remark, the UNIDO Country Director in Nigeria, Mr. Patrick Kormarwa, recalled that the Country Programme for Industrial Development Agreement signed with Nigeria has a framework for revision of the document, in line with the priority of government.
He said the revised country programmes’ objective was to support industrialisation in Nigeria and helped the country achieve the goal of becoming one of the 20 largest economies by the year 2020 and to promote non-oil sector, enhance productive capacity, increase value addition, promotion of agro industry and sustainable energy in Nigeria.

Earlier, the Acting Director Policy, Standards Research and Statistics, Mrs. Victoria Familola, had stated that the themes and components of the Country Programme were for poverty reduction, trade capacity building and energy and environment, adding that the main objective was to promote economic growth and non-oil sector, create jobs generate wealth and value addition.

The implementation committees were split into four committees consisting of Poverty Reduction through Productive Activities; Energy and Environment; Country Programme Steering committee (CPSC) and National Planning Commission (NPC).