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Oil And Gas |
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SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT, RIVERS STATE.
The Project: Total Credit for Agriculture and Rural development (TOTALCARD)
Location: Elf Petroleum Nigeria Limited host communities in Rivers State, Nigeria, covered by Oil Mining Lease (OML) No 58 of the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN)
Collaborating Partners: Elf Petroleum Nigeria Limited, EPNL.
Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN.
United Bank for Africa, UBA.
Implementing Agencies: 1.Multi Sector Projects, MPL
2.Foundation for Rural Development and Self-Help, FORDESH.
Project Specialist: Tony Asangaeneng- fully in charge of implementation. |
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Project Brief: The project is a sustainable development cluster interventions program addressing financial constraints faced by socio-economic networks. It is a radical financial intermediation program that seeks to reconcile the banking institutions with the poor by working to assist the banks to streamline its operations so as to be poverty friendly.
The uniqueness of the program is that it builds on already existing indigenous knowledge and patterns of community driven credit system thus making it culture friendly with great positive implications for success.TOTALCARD project emerged from the womb of the Niger Delta Trust Fund (NDTF) created by the development finance office of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) with the sole aim of working in partnership with stakeholders in the Oil & Gas industry and the banking sub sector to remove credit related constraints faced by micro entrepreneurs in the Niger Delta. |
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| Collaborating partners in the TOTALCARD projects are ELF Petroleum Nigeria Limited (EPNL), the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the United Bank for Africa (UBA), dubbed as the “service provider bank”. The goal and central objectives of this partnership are: |
- To remove the credit related constraints faced by micro entrepreneurs in the oil rich Niger Delta
- To encourage Agric/Non-Agric Credit flow to EPNL host communities from UBA
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All of which are directed towards mitigating the causes of restiveness and violence in the oil rich Niger Delta region of Nigeria and to drive a process for sustainable development |
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Participating Co-operatives |
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In addition to an initial list of about 30 co-operative societies that the Sustainable Development Division of ELF Petroleum Nigeria Limited (EPNL) made available, project personnel embarked on intensive mobilization of groups and co-operative societies to ensure wider participation in the Focus Group Discussion and quantitative assessment. |
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As a strategy for effective mobilization, the Project Task Team (PTT) moved from community to community while an advance team was sent to help in informing/mobilizing community leaders, co-operative societies executives in each community, selection of venue and time of meeting etc. |
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Consequently, a total of 104 co-operative societies and groups participated and the Situation Assessment initially scheduled to last for 2 weeks extended to over 2 months. |
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Situation Assessment |
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The implementing agencies, Multi Sector Projects (MPL) and Foundation for Rural Development and Self-Help (FORDESH) mobilized to the field in October 2003 to commence the first component of the project – Situation Assessment (SA). The Situation Assessment of co-operative societies was aimed at determining their specific needs: financial, administrative, market, training as well as determining pre-interventions income levels of both individuals and participating co-operatives to serve as bench mark for post – interventions evaluation of project impact. |
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The two-volume Situation Assessment Report (SAR) was submitted to EPNL and its partners in April 2004.CD-ROM Copies of the report can be obtained on request from Research and Programs Department of MPL. |
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On going phases of the project include credit access by cooperative groups, tracking of investments, customized trainings, strengthening recovery mechanisms by building peer Networks, market access, capacity building and co-ordinated investments. |
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For more information, contact Research and Programs Department of MPL.
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