The United Nations Development Programme and the Bank of Agriculture have signed a Memorandum of Understanding aimed at transforming Nigeria’s agricultural financing architecture and launching a One Million Hectare Tree Crop Programme.
The agreement was signed on Thursday at the UN House in Abuja. The event also featured the symbolic handover of ICT equipment to strengthen BOA’s institutional capacity and improve its operational systems.
Speaking at the ceremony, UNDP Resident Representative, Ms Elsie Attafuah, said Nigeria’s ongoing economic reforms must produce real and visible benefits for citizens.
“Nigeria is in the middle of one of the most consequential reform cycles in decades,” she said, citing foreign exchange reform, fuel subsidy removal, fiscal restructuring and energy liberalisation.
“But reforms only matter when they are felt by households when they translate into food on the table, incomes in rural communities, jobs for young people, and exports that stabilise the naira,” she added.
Attafuah stressed that agriculture remains central to delivering the dividends of reform. She noted that food systems are Nigeria’s largest employer and also a major driver of inflation.
“If we get agricultural transformation right, we strengthen economic stability, social cohesion, and public confidence all at once,” Attafuah stated.
She commended President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for what she described as bold leadership that has brought the Bank of Agriculture back onto a reform and delivery pathway.
According to her, the new partnership goes beyond symbolic cooperation and is designed to rebuild the country’s agricultural financing structure.
“This partnership with the Bank of Agriculture is therefore not about cooperation in principle. It is about rebuilding Nigeria’s agricultural financing architecture,” she said.
Attafuah explained that the MoU would anchor BOA’s institutional transformation within a national delivery and financing framework. She said the structure is designed to crowd in climate finance, development finance and private capital into the agricultural sector.
She also highlighted the importance of the ICT support provided during the event.
“The symbolic handover of ICT equipment today is not trivial. Institutions deliver development. Without modern systems, data, and operational tools, no financing architecture can work,” she said.
Outlining what success would look like, Attafuah said, “Success is not an MoU on the shelf. Success is bankable investment pipelines in priority states and regions; blended finance vehicles absorbing climate and private capital; functioning farmer registries and credit systems; PPPs delivering processing capacity; and measurable gains in food security, rural incomes, exports, and jobs within the next 24–36 months.”
In his remarks, BOA Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Mr Ayodeji Sotinrin, said the partnership would be judged strictly by results.
“We did not come here today for the photographs, the handshakes, or the press releases. Nigeria has had enough of those. Our farmers have had enough of those. What our people need, and what this country deserves are results,” he said.
“The value of this MOU will be measured not in the elegance of its language, but in the number of farmers who access finance for the first time; in the hectares brought under cultivation; in the jobs created for our young people; in the dollars of foreign exchange earned from agricultural exports; and in the communities transformed.”
Sotinrin described the partnership as a strong signal of confidence in what he called BOA 2.0.
“When UNDP chooses to anchor a flagship agricultural transformation partnership with an institution, it is making a statement. That statement, today, is this: the United Nations believes in BOA 2.0,” he said.
At the centre of the partnership is the One Million Hectare Tree Crop Programme, described as a presidential initiative to cultivate economic tree crops such as cashew, oil palm, coffee and rubber across the federation.
“This is not a feasibility study. It is not a pilot. This initiative is a commercially designed, nationally scaled programme to put one million hectares of productive economic tree crops into the ground with the financing, the technical frameworks, the performance monitoring, and the partnership ecosystem to back it up,” Sotinrin said.
He explained that the programme would be rolled out in phases. The first phase will cover 200,000 hectares through nucleus estates and cooperatives. The second phase will scale to 400,000 hectares supported by processing centres. The final phase will reach one million hectares integrated into export value chains and carbon credit frameworks.
Sotinrin said 70 per cent of the programme would be allocated to commercial entities under performance-based concessions, while 30 per cent would support citizens, including smallholders, schools, cooperatives and members of the National Youth Service Corps.
“The expected outcomes are clear: over 2 million direct and indirect jobs created through nurseries, planting, processing, and export. Five national tree crop value chains established. Significant foreign exchange earnings, Reforestation of degraded lands, Carbon sequestration certified and monetised,” he stated.
He called on commercial banks, impact investors, processors and development partners to co-finance and support the initiative to ensure its successful implementation across the country.
