[left][/left]We have provided technical support for over 6,000 farmers- Garba

A Non-profit Organisation, Diamond Development Initiative (DDI), on Tuesday celebrated over 20 years of providing assistance, services to unserved and underserved communities in Nigeria and beyond.

The event which held in Abuja, with award presentation as its major highlight, had in attendance dignitaries and representatives of state governors, staffs of the organisation, stakeholders, amongst others.

The Executive Director, Mr Adamu Garba in his opening speech, disclosed to pressmen, other participants that DDI, has manned its mandate which is to build a society that provides equitable opportunity for self-actualization through economic empowerment and sustainable livelihood initiatives purposefully.

According to Garba, the organisation whose aim is to complement the role of development agencies and donors, has provided connections for no fewer than 2,000 businesses and assisted over 600,000 farmers technically, all in a bid to curb unemployment, alleviate poverty in the nation.

He added that the organisation focused on providing technical assistance in the design, planning and implementation of various development initiatives in the country, emphasising that all beneficiaries were drawn from 29 out of the 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

“Some of our focus areas include: business support and enterprise management, agricultural value chain improvement, renewable and off-grid energy support, youth and women-led enterprise support and agriculture, among others.

“More than 600,000 farmers have been assisted, while no fewer than 20,000 farmer-groups and cooperative societies and 8,000 off-grid energy connections have been provided for rural households.

“We also have over 2,000 connections to businesses.

These are good figures we are happy about and we have also been able to work with over 60 off-grid energy entrepereneurs to provide off-grid energies to households,” he added.

Commending the organisation for its continous support in alleviation of poverty in the nation, the Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo, ably represented by Hajia Maryam Uwais, reiterated that the effort goes to show that they are in the right track, to ensure that they make impacts in the lives of the people.

“The government cannot do it alone. So all efforts by organisations as the DDI are highly appreciated,” he said.