ACIED Africa

31/12/2025

As the year 2025 ends in few hours, we reflect on our commitments/activities towards promotion of Safe, Orderly, Regular Migration in Nigeria.

The revised National Migration Policy and its Integrated Implementation Plan (IIP), officially validated by the Nigeria government in 2025, provide a comprehensive and actionable framework to govern migration in a safe, orderly and development oriented manner. The IIP serves as Nigeria’s National Implementation Plan for the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular and aligning with key international and regional instruments including the GCM, the ECOWAS Protocol on Free Movement of Persons and the African Union Migration Policy Framework (2018–2030), it outlines six strategic priorities that focus on regular migration and labour mobility, protection of migrants’ rights, border management, return and reintegration, data and evidence-based planning, inclusion of cross-cutting issues, & institutional coordination.

The review led by the National Commission for Refugees, Migrants and Internally Displaced Persons (NCFRMI), responded to emerging migration realities including economic pressures, conflict-induced displacement, rising irregular migration and trafficking trends, evolving labour mobility patterns, and the need for improved coordination across all levels of governance. The policy aims to manage migration for national development, safeguard rights, and foster collaboration. Its participatory process ensured that the revised policy is rights-based, gender-responsive, and inclusive, grounded in evidence and shaped by national and local perspectives.

As the adoption of the Nigeria's National Migration Policy (NMP) and its Integrated Implementation Plan (IIP) by the government of Nigeria is in
progress, ACIED AFRICA has played a key role in the review and validation of
NMP, and particularly laying the groundwork for effective sensitization, public awareness, and stakeholder understanding to support smooth implementation through its initiatives, particularly "The Migrant Project," ACIED Africa has focused on ensuring inclusive policy design by incorporating voices of the vulnerable groups and communities, and transformation of humanitarian actions for women, youth, returnees, refugees with disabilities, and Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Nigeria.

ACIED Africa is committed to strengthening voices of women and youth in National Migration Dialogue, policy decisions, encouraging informed choices for legal channels and promoting safe, regular migration pathways, empowering youth/workers, and engaging governments in addressing root causes and tackling drivers of irregular migration in Nigeria by working directly with ministries, departments and agencies including, National Commission For Migrants, Refuges and Internally Displaced Persons (NCFMRI), National Population Commission, Fed. Min. of Youth Development to influence migration policy and governance.

20/12/2025

Indeed, leading a team and working to develop Nigeria's first ‘National Agroecology Strategy’ especially within a condensed timeframe is a challenging undertaking. This task involves comprehensive research, extensive collaboration and consultations across various sectors and diverse stakeholders, and dedicated leadership to establish a foundational agroecology framework for Nigeria.

The growing interest of Nigeria developing its first-ever-comprehensive “national agroecology strategy” is bound out of genuine concerns to address interconnected challenges of climate change, food insecurity, and environmental degradation, and shifting Nigeria towards a regenerative agricultural model, focusing on smallholder farmers, youth, and indigenous knowledge. The strategy prioritizes building a climate-resilient food system, improving soil health, and boosting farmer livelihoods. It also aims to promote the use of indigenous seeds, and to phase out highly toxic chemical fertilizer and pesticides that are contaminating food crops causing health risks to humans and animals, and poor ecosystem functioning.

Of various sustainable approaches, ‘AGROECOLOGY’ has continued to gain traction as an approach that is sustainable, viable and compatible with smallholder farmers’ traditional or indigenous farm knowledge. The increasing interest in agroecology has resulted in various countries around the world, and a few in Africa to begin to adopt and/or transition towards agroecological practices and a few have begun institutionalizing and integrating them into their agriculture and food policy frameworks, aligning to the CFS HLPE-FSN 13 Principles.

It is a privilege to be involved in such foundational national policy work, and particularly, the opportunity to lead a group of Consultants for the drafting of the national agroecology framework and validating it with a total number of 300 participants (120 physical, 180 participated actively through the Zoom platform) including House of Representative Committee on Agricultural Production and Services, FMAFS, and all the 36 States’ ADP Managers and Extension Directors, ECOWAS, All Farmers Association of Nigeria, Nigeria Agribusiness Group, Young Farmers in Nigeria (YOFIN), the Small-Scale Women Farmers Organization in Nigeria, Be the Help Foundation, Heinrich Boll Stiftung Foundation, Media, Academia, Research Institutions & members of various CSOs.

My appreciation to ActionAid Nigeria, Fed. Min. Agriculture & Food Security (FMAFS), private sector and the civil society for the confidence placed in me to lead the process. While we work towards the finalization of the Strategy, it is my great hope that the Nigerian government at all levels officially adopt this crucial framework and provides the necessary support for its successful nationwide implementation.

21/10/2025

On the occasion of the International World Food Day, we at ACIEDafrica join the international community to celebrate Africa's resilient food producers while calling for collective action to address the systemic challenges of hunger and malnutrition.

We recognize the foundation of Africa's food systems built on the hands and traditions of millions of smallholder farmers, pastoralists, fisherfolk, and innovators. We celebrate them as the "Food Heroes" who tirelessly work to nourish our communities. Ending hunger requires more than immediate relief; it demands fixing the broken systems. Africans must hold governments, corporations, and international bodies accountable for creating fair and just food value chains. In totality, we align with the 2025 theme, "Hand in Hand for Better Foods and a Better Future," by emphasizing collaboration and sustainable, equitable solutions.

13/08/2025

Happy International Youth Day!

Today as we commemorate International Youth Day, we would like to celebrate the potentials of young people as partners in global society.

In recognition of the important role of youth as critical stakeholder on SDGs, we at ACIEDafrica supports the Day as a way to amplify the voice of youth globally, and particularly in Africa by advocating "PRODUCTIVE EMPLOYMENT AND DECENT WORK FOR YOUTH".

While rapid globalization and technological change may offer new opportunities for productive work and incomes for the youth, for many working age young people the lack of decent job prospects increase their vulnerability in the transition from childhood to adulthood. The investment of governments in education and training will be lost if young people do not move into productive jobs that enable them to support themselves, contribute to their families' earnings and pay their public dues.

Poor employment in the early stages of young peoples' carriers can harm their self-esteem and their lives. Without the prospect of stable employment for young people, societies pay a high price as well. Excluded youth who find themselves alienated from society, frustrated by lack of opportunities and without financial means are more vulnerable to personal and socially destructive behavior and more prone to engage in illegal and dangerous activities.

providing young women and men with formal and non-formal education possibilities, including vocational training would lead to their empowerment. In the past several decades, more women than men have pursued higher education in some countries, particularly in Africa. However, this has not necessarily led to better labour market outcomes for women, as sex-based discriminatory practices may influence their recruitment.

Gender discrimination, cultural traditions and lack of opportunities often leave young women with traditional unpaid, family-based work. This is prevalent among rural youth.

An important employment challenge is to tackle occupational segregation of traditionally accepted "male" and "female" jobs and break the barriers in opening up opportunities for both sexes.

Research looking at gender and salary revealed that men asked for more money or salary increase at eight times the rate of women. It is therefore important to address gender stereotyping, and real action taken in order to avert growing employment crisis.

Labour market regulations, policies and institutions play a crucial role in matching the Supply and Demand sides of the labour market. The growing number of young young people and in particular young women on intermittent, insecure and low-paid jobs in some countries and their over-representation in the informal economy in others require urgent actions to improve their working conditions, ensure pay equity and to advance their rights at work.

30/07/2025

ACIEDafrica had the privilege to be part of a 2-day high-level policy convening workshop held in Abuja on July 21-22, 2025 by Advocacy Policy Initiative (API) in collaboration with NITDA and the National Assembly, and supported by INCLUDE and FCDO.

The 2-day insightful policy roundtable workshop brought together various stakeholders including policymakers, regulators, civil society and digital rights experts as well as digital platforms/ICT service providers for two main objectives/purposes towards digital transformation in Nigeria.

(1) To review and refine the key elements of the draft - Nigeria Online Safety and Protection Bill, also known as "Online Harms Protection (OHP) Bill". - The OHP Bill aims to create a coordinated and rights-respecting framework for tackling harmful online behavior while safeguarding freedom of expression, innovation, and digital inclusion. Essentially, it seeks to reduce online harms, such as cyberbullying, gender-based violence, disinformation, hate speech, and digital exploitations, promote user safety, accessibility, civic inclusion and create a transparent, accountable regulatory framework in Nigeria. The Bill is meant to address non-compliance issues by various platforms, users complaints and afford civil society engagement in enforcement processes.

(2) Presentation of key findings from the Governance and Innovation Network for Enhanced Regulations (GINGER) Project, which leverages Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) to inform the policy design of the National Digital Economy and E-Governance Bill, exploring strategies to strengthen Nigeria's STI policy coherence and Institutionalize experimental policy methods.

The GINGER findings/report serves as a crucial resource for stakeholders, providing data-driven insights and informed recommendations to guide decision-making and policy development.

Highlights of key findings are:

1. FOUNDATION: Training and capacity building establish a baseline for digital literacy but require parallel investments in trust and infrastructure to sustain impact.
2. EFFICIENCY: Transactional innovations enhance speed and security but demand trust-enabling frameworks for adoption.
3. IMPACT: Public service efficiency and consumer protection create societal value but are sensitive to access disparities and enforcement gaps.
4. INNOVATION: Policy experimentation through RCTs drives iterative improvement but depends on overcoming stakeholder resistance and institutional inertia.

18/07/2025

"RETHINKING THE ROLE OF AGRICULTURE FOR SUSTAINABLE LIVELIHOODS'

Rural men and women, especially in poor households, engage in diverse and multiple activities to improve their livelihoods by maximizing income-generating activities, while minimizing vulnerability and risk, and achieving other household objectives.

Achieving sustainable food security requires actions at national, household and individual levels to enhance food security through rapid increases in food production and reduction in year-to-year variability in production on an economically and environmentally-sound basis, and improving rural people's access to food, land and natural resources, productive technology and markets. These multiple objectives can only be obtained by adopting more balanced approaches to sustainable food security that both satisfy the needs of urban consumers and reward small-scale rural food producers and rural investors for their efforts.

In order to solve this complex food supply-demand problem, a broader understanding and analysis of the capacity constraints and incentives of the rural livelihoods imbedded within this relationship is needed. For example, inadequate rights of access to land and other natural resources, and insecure tenure of those rights will surely limit the capacities of rural food producers to take advantage of economic opportunities to improve their productivity, profitability and livelihoods. Likewise, weak public institutional capacities for delivering services to farmers and weak private sector and civil society organizations limit small-scale food producers’ ability to access information, new technologies and markets.

02/04/2025

HELP US UNLOCK $10,000 AFRICA IMPACT FUND
I am pleased to share that AFRICAN CENTRE FOR INCLUSIVE ENTREPRENEURSHIP, RESILIENCE AND SOCIAL INNOVATION [ACIEDafrica] in Nigeria has been selected to participate in the Africa Impact Fundraising Grant Program, an initiative of the NEW AFRICA FUND.
As part of this program, we are taking part in a fundraising challenge from April 1 to April 30, 2025. Once we raise $500, the New Africa Fund will match every additional dollar, one-to-one, up to $5,000. This means that if we reach our goal, your generosity will help us unlock a total of $10,000 to support our mission of advancing equitable, inclusive and sustainable socioeconomic growth.
With your DONATION, you will directly support our efforts to:
· Amplify the voices of underserved communities, ensuring their participation in decision-making; demanding accountability and improved service delivery;
· Empower women and young entrepreneurs, providing them with resources and opportunities for economic success;
· Promote gender equality and social and economic justice, building a movement for inclusive and sustainable growth.
We kindly invite you to support us in this effort. Every contribution—no matter the amount — brings us closer to unlocking the full match and making a greater impact. If you are able to support us, please donate here
https://lnkd.in/eap-mUGz
About ACIEDafrica:
ACIEDafrica is a non-governmental, knowledge-based organization dedicated to capability and capacity development. Our mission is to stimulate productive inclusion by developing skills, rights, and opportunities for all—especially marginalized groups, including people with disabilities, widows, and low-income workers in order to guarantee that everyone benefits equitably from the social and economic growth processes and get engaged in it.
Through advocacy, skill-building, and community-driven initiatives, we help individuals turn their talents into legitimate businesses that contribute to sustainable, resilient, and equitable shared community wealth. We are committed to systemic change, fostering inclusivity through policies and practices that promote fairness, transparency, and accountability.
Learn more about our work and impact at: www.aciedafrica.org
We deeply appreciate your support and belief in our mission.
With gratitude,
Adeshile Adenekan
Executive Director
[email protected] [email protected]
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02/04/2025

HELP US UNLOCK $10,000 AFRICA IMPACT FUND

I am pleased to share that AFRICAN CENTRE FOR INCLUSIVE ENTREPRENEURSHIP, RESILIENCE AND SOCIAL INNOVATION [ACIEDafrica] in Nigeria has been selected to participate in the Africa Impact Fundraising Grant Program, an initiative of the NEW AFRICA FUND.

As part of this program, we are taking part in a fundraising challenge from April 1 to April 30, 2025. Once we raise $500, the New Africa Fund will match every additional dollar, one-to-one, up to $5,000. This means that if we reach our goal, your generosity will help us unlock a total of $10,000 to support our mission of advancing equitable, inclusive and sustainable socioeconomic growth.

With your DONATION, you will directly support our efforts to:
· Amplify the voices of underserved communities, ensuring their participation in decision-making; demanding accountability and improved service delivery;
· Empower women and young entrepreneurs, providing them with resources and opportunities for economic success;
· Promote gender equality and social and economic justice, building a movement for inclusive and sustainable growth.

We kindly invite you to support us in this effort. Every contribution—no matter the amount — brings us closer to unlocking the full match and making a greater impact. If you are able to support us, please donate here
https://lnkd.in/eap-mUGz

About ACIEDafrica:
ACIEDafrica is a non-governmental, knowledge-based organization dedicated to capability and capacity development. Our mission is to stimulate productive inclusion by developing skills, rights, and opportunities for all—especially marginalized groups, including people with disabilities, widows, and low-income workers in order to guarantee that everyone benefits equitably from the social and economic growth processes and get engaged in it.

Through advocacy, skill-building, and community-driven initiatives, we help individuals turn their talents into legitimate businesses that contribute to sustainable, resilient, and equitable shared community wealth. We are committed to systemic change, fostering inclusivity through policies and practices that promote fairness, transparency, and accountability.

Learn more about our work and impact at: www.aciedafrica.org

We deeply appreciate your support and belief in our mission.

With gratitude,

Adeshile Adenekan
Executive Director
[email protected] [email protected]
g

09/03/2025

Celebrating International Women's Day.

Our Women, Our Honour!

25/12/2024