Press Release – The Kaduna State Government in collaboration with The Convention on Business Integrity (CBI) and the Business Innovation Facility (BIF) Commissions Rural Milk Processing Facility to boost Economic opportunities and Community Transformation
Kaduna, Nigeria. The Convention on Business Integrity in collaboration with The Kaduna State Government will commission the Ladugga grazing reserve milk processing facility on January 22nd 2019 at Ladugga, Kaduna State. The rural milk processing facility was set up with technical assistance from the Business Innovation Facility – a UKAID supported project.
The Convention on Business Integrity was founded in 1997 to bring about a society that prefers integrity over corruption. CBI promotes and supports anti-corruption business coalitions with the use of collective action to curb corruption and promote ethical business Practices, transparency and fair competition in the private sector.
The Business Innovation Facility (BIF) one of the strategic initiatives of the organisation is a market systems development project that focuses on introducing business innovations that enable small holder farmers overcome productivity constraints across a portfolio of markets including the diary market.
BIF’s work in the dairy market has led to significant efficiency gains in milk handling/collection, processing and value addition. With BIF’s support the Ladugga community co-operative has set up a model rural milk collection system that has the capacity to process into yoghurt 500 litres of raw milk per day. This has led to an increase in economic opportunities, new jobs and a consistent income for rural households within the Ladugga grazing reserve community whose livelihoods depend on milk sales.
Prior to BIF’s engagement with the community, milk output per cow per day was on the average 0.3 litres. With the introduction of improved feed and milk handling practices, Fulani pastoralists within the grazing reserve have observed improvements in milk yield of an average of 3 litres per cow per day. The increase in milk yield led to the initiation of a rural milk collection system as a way to aggregate raw milk for supply to off-takers. In order to guarantee their fellow pastoralists a consistent income, reduce the incidence of milk spoilage and curb wastage, the co-operative established by Ladugga pastoralists secured funding with BIF’s assistance to set up the rural milk processing facility to produce yoghurt.
The rural milk processing facility serves as a model other grazing reserves and community-based pastoralists can replicate to improve their income and stimulate the growth of their rural economies. This replication could lead to significant growth across the Nigerian dairy value chain that would move smallholder pastoralists from subsistence to a more commercial level of agriculture.
The CBi is involved in several other strategic business initiatives some of which include:
- Corporate Governance Rating System: A collaborative effort with The Nigerian Stock Exchange to incentivize listed companies in Nigeria to choose the paths of integrity over corruption using a rating system (based on that designed originally by CBi for use by its signatories) to gather compliance information.
- SME Governance & Controls Tool Kit: Developed a self-assessment guide and toolkit for SMEs based on the 2013 COSO Framework for Internal Controls as the Independent Facilitator of Collective Action against corruption for SMEs, appointed by the Nigeria Local Network of the UN Global Compact.
- Sea Ports & Terminals Sop Compliance Ratings with MACN: Facilitator of the Maritime Anti-Corruption Network’s activities in Nigeria (MACN) in addition to training officials at some of Nigeria’s sea ports on professional ethics and reiterating the importance to adhere to their Standard Operating Procedures (SoPs) developed as part of the ongoing Port Services Reforms.
- Professionals Against Corruption: Initiated a collective action against corruption targeting the local professional services firms who wish to do business without corrupt acts like giving kick-backs using our being a counterparty to Professionals Against Corruption in the UK, co-chaired by PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC).
- Interventions in Public Procurement
All strategic initiatives are underway except the proposed Construction (Infrastructure) Sector Transparency Initiative (CoST) which is still being negotiated. Following talks with the international secretariat in London, CBi is preparing to conduct a Political Economy analysis to confirm the opportunities for successfully launching this initiative in Nigeria. We already have a group of Nigerian Construction firms with annual turnover in the range £10m-£30m who would like to do business with the public sector and need this framework in order to be able to engage safely. Their participation is driven by their awareness of the potential loss of reputation associated with doing business with
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Press Enquiries: For more information/clarification/questions about the program, please get in touch with the contact person listed (Oduenyi Okonkwo-Business Innovation Facility- oduenyi.okonkwo@cbinigeria.com – 0803 357 7592)
