A two- day end- of – project Supervision Mission by the African Development Bank to the Support to Agricultural Research for Development of Strategic crops(SARD-SC) project was conducted at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) Ibadan, Nigeria, from Thursday 2 to Friday 3 November, 2017. The AFDB team was led by Dr. Ibrahim Amadou, project Task Manager. He was accompanied by other members of his team including Mr. Yakubu Bako, Disbursement Officer; Mr. Abba Jaffar, Procurement officer and Mr. Femi Ojo-Fajuyi, Financial Management Consultant.
The objective of the supervision mission, according to Dr. Amadou, was for the team to learn about the impact the SARD-SC project has made in contributing to food and nutritional security during the five year period of its implementation. “We are interested in the high level impact the project has made in all ramifications. We also want to know of the challenges and lessons learnt in the implementation of the project that could be useful to future projects. And we are happy that SARD-SC project was efficiently implemented.”
In his remarks, Dr. Chrys Akem, the Project Coordinator, thanked the members of the team and the AFDB for giving SARD-SC team the opportunity to implement such a huge project. He expressed satisfaction at the achievements of all the commodities within the project including the wheat and rice value chains which they had visited in Tunis and Abidjan, respectively before arriving in Ibadan. Dr. Issaka Amadou, M&E Specialist and Mr. Seyi Fashokun made presentations on their respective fields of M&E and Project finances. Following their presentations, there were discussions on the outcomes and impact of the SARD-SC cassava and maize activities and the Project Completion Report (PCR) findings, prepared by Dr. Yaya Sabo, a PCR consultant to the project. At the conclusion of the mission, the Bank supervision mission team drafted an Aide Memoire, usually done at the end of such missions, that highlighted the general implementation achievements of the project including lessons learnt, with inputs from participants of the PCR.