The overall goal of the North East Youth Agripreneurship (NEYA) Initiative is to harness the energy and skills of Youths of the North East region of Nigeria into rewarding participation in agribusiness thereby contributing significantly to increased agricultural production, employment generation, and wealth creation in the region. The initiative is centred on facilitating the involvement of educated youths (with a minimum of secondary education) in agribusiness activities (primary production, service provision, value addition and commercialization) along rice, maize, cowpea and groundnut value chains.

The activities of these youths will in-turn create market opportunities for agricultural inputs (including fertilizers and improved seeds), farm services (including mechanization services for land preparation, planting, crop protection and harvesting), farm outputs (including aggregation and sale of grains) and value addition activities (particularly processing of grains into food products).

All these market opportunities are fully aligned with ISL’s primary business of end-to-end development of agricultural value chains to enable effective and profitable participation of smallholders. Specifically, as it will translate to

• Significant growth in demand for ISL’s supply of improved farm inputs and extension services,
• Expansion of ISL’s produce aggregation business through ready access to grains produced by the youths, and
• Expansion of ISL’s value addition activities into the region through partnership with NEYA associates.

Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today.

― Malcolm X

The activities covered within the month under review is the continuous strengthening of the NEYA groups in their meetings, facilitation of loan services, partnership that broadens the financial capacity of NEYA members and development of saving groups. All these activities are generally geared towards strengthening the resilience of the NEYA members as a fulfilment towards the commitment made by ISL.

ACTIVITY 7.1: Supporting NEYA group meetings

ISL field staff continues to support the established NEYA groups in their various meetings to ensure they maintain momentum towards achieving the fulfilment and aims of the group. As these meetings continue to hold, ISL field staffs continue to reiterate the benefits of operating a cooperative; nailing hard on the multifaceted benefits they stand to access as a body. Generally these youths continue to show enthusiasm even as some of them are already knee deep into the dry season farming.

ACTIVITY 8.1: Facilitation of credit Loan to NEYA members

Sequel to the various partnership meeting held in 2022 around facilitation of loan to NEYA members and the consequent participation of Standard Micro Finance Bank (SMFB) personnel at the Farming as a Business training in December 2022, ISL team together with some leaders of the NEYA groups continued the engagement with SMFB teams in Gombi and Yola LGAs of Adamawa state, around facilitation of credit loan to interested NEYA group members for dry season farming.

The management of Standard Micro Finance Bank in Yola has informed concerning the necessary documents needed to facilitate for participants with interest in applying for the dry season loan. The guidelines are set differently according to categorization of Group account and Individual account.

• Group Account: Certificate of cooperative registration, National Identity Card, 1 passport photograph of group members, Fee of 3000 Naira.
• Individual Account: 3 passport photographs, National Identity Card, Fee of 1000 Naira.

Proper engagements between staff of SMFB and NEYA group members will begin whenever NEYA groups are ready and have opened an account with the bank. Only then shall the process of crediting their account commence.

The bank manager in Gombi LGA, who was newly employed into the system and deployed to the location, have taken a different approach to the loan application, wherewith, have informed that staff of SMFB shall visit the houses and farms of interested NEYA members, only afterwards, to commence the process of applying for the credit loan for the dry season farming. In all, we are optimistic that within the shortest time possible, NEYA members having met the aforementioned criteria will have access to these funds.

ACTIVITY 8.1: Developing Partnership with FCMB

Following an initial meeting between ISL and FCMB facilitated by the RRA, ISL continued the engagement towards developing a partnership that includes agency banking services (ISL will serve as a super-agent and recruit suitable NEYA members to serve as sub-agents) and integration of platforms to enable ISL perform a lot of broader financial service functions to its beneficiaries. During the period under review, the two parties signed an NDA, commenced the API integration process and the documentation for the agency services. This in anticipation will provide NEYA members with job opportunities and greater financial freedom to actively engage in larger scale agricultural activities thereby building their resilience and independence.

ACTIVITY 8.1: Development of Savings Groups

As part of further strengthening the NEYA groups, ISL following consultation with the registered groups commenced the introduction of Savings Group mechanisms across the locations of coverage.

During the period under review, design of saving-box to be produced was identified and the process of identifying fabricators commenced. Some of the NEYA groups in Kwaya-Kusar, Biu, and Hawul LGAs, have already commenced saving contributions in anticipation of the provision of the Box. The plan is to work with RRA team to eventually organize training on the subject for the affected groups once the boxes are ready for distribution.

The key lesson for the month under consideration is that follow-up is as important as starting an activity. Some of the groups were excited to see ISL field staff, negating their position of thinking that perhaps after the festivities they will be left alone unguided.