New Telegraph

COVID-19: CBN’s effort to boost economy intensifies

With concern growing over vaccine nationalism, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) is stepping up efforts to ensure local production of pharmaceuticals and food crops, writes TONY CHUKWUNYEM

In the wake of the outbreak of the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), as part of its policy measures in response to the pandemic, launched a N100 billion Healthcare Sector Research and Development Intervention Scheme (HSRDIS) in March last year, which it said, practitioners in the pharmaceutical and health care sectors would be able to access finance at single digit rate.

A few weeks later, CBN Governor, Mr. Godwin Emefiele, also announced that the apex bank was developing a framework to offer grants and credit to researchers, science institutions and biotechnology firms to develop a vaccine against the pandemic.

He noted at the time that if Nigeria was to wait for foreign countries to develop their own vaccines, the country would probably be the last in the queue to receive the required amount of vaccines that would be required to inoculate its teeming population.

Emefiele said: “The CBN today challenges Nigerian scientists at home and in the diaspora to go back to their laboratories and develop a Nigerian vaccine. Once validated by the Health Authorities, the CBN will step in and do the needful for the sake of over 200 million Nigerians now confronted by COVID-19.

“Our inability to accurately predict the extent to which the coronavirus could spread, and how long it would last, requires that we build sufficient capacity within our health system in order to contain the spread of the virus, state by state, city by city and preserve the lives of vulnerable Nigerians. This requires that we all come together to support the work of the Presidential Task Force in its determination to save lives and stem the pandemic.”

Pandemic as opportunity to reset economy

Indeed, in an op-ed article entitled, “Turning the COVID-19 tragedy into an opportunity for new Nigeria,” which was widely circulated at the time, the CBN governor argued that the pandemic and the immediate response of many of the country’s trading partners meant that “it is now more critical than ever that we take back control, not just control over our economy, but also of our destiny and our future.”

He noted that in the wake of the pandemic crisis, countries had moved away from multilateralism and had introduced measures to protect their own people and economies, regardless of the spillover effects on the rest of the world. He pointed out that the possibility of the pandemic continuing, resulting in countries shutting their borders and restricting food imports could not be completely ruled out. According to him, “what if these restrictions become the new normal? What if the pandemic continues in a second wave or another pandemic occurs in which all borders are shut, and food imports are significantly restricted? What if we cannot seek medical care outside Nigeria and must rely on local hospitals and medical professionals? For how long shall we continue to rely on the world for anything and everything at every time? “We do not know what the world will look like after this pandemic. Countries may continue to look inwards and globalisation as we know it today may be dead for a generation.

Therefore, as a nation, we cannot afford to continue relying on the world for our food, education and healthcare. “The time has come to fully transform Nigeria into a modern, sophisticated and inclusive economy that is self-sufficient, rewards the hardworking, but protects the poor and vulnerable, and can compete internationally across a range of strategic sectors,” the CBN governor added. Furthermore, at an interactive session he had with journalists a few weeks later, Emefiele described the coronavirus crisis as “a golden opportunity for Nigeria to reset.”

He said: “The pandemic has led to a significant drop in oil revenue. This means we have no choice but to diversify the base of our economy. It also means that dollars will not come in the size and quantum that they used to come and that we have to prioritise the allocation of the dollars that available. It also means that we must produce what we can be produced in Nigeria and that we consume what we produce.”

Vaccine nationalism

Significantly, almost a year after the CBN governor’s op ed article was published, the fears he expressed in the write up appear to be coming true especially with respect to vaccine nationalism. According to a Bloomberg report last week, growing vaccine nationalism in major producers like India is hitting the world’s most disadvantaged countries the hardest, leaving them waiting for millions of doses promised through COVAX, the World Health Organisation (WHO)- backed inoculation initiative.

Citing a new wave of covid-19 infections, major vaccine producers such as India have announced plans to keep more vaccine supply for domestic use, thereby reducing vaccine export to needy countries. Thus, while Nigeria, for instance, took delivery of 3.92 million doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine (under the COVAX scheme) early this month, there are now concerns whether the country would still receive the expected 84 million doses of the vaccine from COVAX this year, the quantity, experts say, is required to inoculate 20 per cent of the nation’s population.

N253.4m grant under HSRDIS

However, Nigeria may eventually not have to grapple with inadequate quantities of covid-19 vaccines given that a few days after the country took delivery of the first batch of the COVAX vaccine, the CBN presented grants to successful beneficiaries of its N100 billion Health Sector Research and Development Intervention Scheme. Speaking at the event, Emefiele disclosed that 68 proposals out of the 286 submissions received by the scheme’s body of experts had been reviewed and evaluated with five proposals with significant merits valued at N253.54 million recommended by the experts for financing. He noted that the recommended proposals had the potential to enable the development of the Nigerian vaccine for COVID-19.

The CBN governor also announced that 82 projects, valued at N85.89 billion, comprising 26 pharmaceutical and 56 medical projects across the country, had been financed through the HSRDIS. Emefiele pointed out that the need to move from a consumer-based economy to a more productive economy necessitated the CBN’s establishment of intervention programmes and schemes across various sectors including the health sector.

Reaping gains of Anchor Borrowers’ Programme

In fact, a fortnight after presenting the HSRDIS grants to beneficiaries, the CBN governor was in Gombe State for an event connected with its most well-known intervention programme, the ABP. Launched by President Muham-madu Buhari on November 17, 2015, the ABP is aimed at creating a linkage between anchor companies involved in the processing and Small Holder Farmers (SHFs) of the required key agricultural commodities, including, cereals (rice, maize, wheat etc.); tree crops (oil palm, cocoa, rubber etc.); legumes (soybean, sesame seed, cowpea etc.); roots and tubers (cassava, potatoes, yam, ginger etc.); cotton, sugarcane, tomato, and livestock (fish, poultry, ruminants), among others. Commenting on the ABP at the flag-off of the 2020 wet season harvest aggregation and the second cycle of the 2020 dry season distribution for the North East region, under the CBN- Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria (RIFAN) collaboration, in Gombe State, Emefiele said the programme had become a game changer for financing smallholder farmers, and will ultimately help in achieving some of the goals of the Federal Government’s Economic Sustainability Plan (ESP). According to him, “the ABP has led to significant improvements in agricultural outputs as well as in improving incomes in our rural communities. The achievements that have been recorded have also helped to show that Nigeria can indeed achieve self-sufficiency in the production of staple food items within the shortest time possible.

“It is also encouraging news, which presents different narratives that portend that most of our farmers are unable to go to their farms due to nationwide insecurity.” He also disclosed that the apex bank had financed 3,038,649 farmers cultivating 3,805,844 hectares across 21 commodities through 23 participating financial institutions in the 36 states of the federation and FCT, from the inception of the scheme till now. He said that the CBN equally financed 221,450 farmers for the cultivation of 221,450 hectares in 32 states under the 2020 wet season CBN-RIFAN partnership, adding that the North-East zone, with 44,870 farmers that cultivated 44,870 hectares, represented 20.26 per cent in total number of farmers and hectares financed, respectively.

To ensure availability of food, he said the CBN was committed to financing one million hectares of rice farms over this dry season, as it had begun to support cultivation for the second production cycle within the dry season. While noting that the collaborative efforts towards self-sufficiency in food production had now turned into a movement, he said the symbolic display of crop pyramids from various fields in the region reinforced the massive potential in Nigeria’s agricultural sector, which should encourage more private sector investment in the agricultural value chain. Although he admitted that Nigeria was still far from achieving its ultimate desire of selfsufficiency in food production, Emefiele said the growth process had seen several layers of control added to improve on transparency and accountability among all stakeholders. Reaffirming the CBN’s belief in the potential inherent in the country’s agricultural sector, he stressed the need to harness this in order to diversify the Nigerian economy.

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