The federal government of Nigeria has opened bilateral discussions with Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) for power and infrastructure development as well as some pipeline projects.
Finance Minister, Kemi Adeosun led the Nigerian delegation to the talks while the Senior Vice President of JICA, Hiroshi Kato, led the JICA delegation.
A statement issued by the Ministry of Finance stated that other members of the Nigerian delegation are the Permanent Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Finance, FMF, Mahmoud Isa-Dutse; Nigeria’s Alternate Executive Director at the World Bank, Haruna Mohammed and the Director of International Economic Relations Department of the FMF, Aliyu Ahmed.
Isa-Dutse, who represented the Finance Minister, commended JICA for strengthening the bilateral relations between Nigeria and Japan.
He assured that Nigeria and the agency would continue to work harmoniously towards the realization of ongoing infrastructure projects in the power, water and road sectors as well as the rehabilitation of Jebba hydro power project.
“JICA is planning to implement the Technical Cooperation Project on capacity development for nutrition improvement in the Federal Capital Territory. This project has five years duration.
“The concept seeks to improve the nutrition situation of rural people in the FCT through dietary improvement and local production and local consumption of nutrition rich food,” Kato said.
He recalled that the Initiative for Food and Nutrition Security in Africa (IFNA) was launched in Nairobi in August 2016 during the Sixth Tokyo International Conference on African Development.
The IFNA, he noted, was created to help African governments accelerate the implementation of their nutrition policies, and also to ensure integration of agriculture into nutrition actions at the local level.
On the power transmission project, Kato said JICA was working towards signing a loan agreement for the project by March 2019.
He expressed the agency’s interest in implementing a master plan study on National Power System Development.
He assured that the National Power System Development project would be a technical cooperation between Nigeria and JICA.
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