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IITA and Jigawa State deepen partnership with co-design mission to drive agricultural transformation
February 9, 2026
IITA DDG Partnerships for Delivery adn Scaling, Dr Tahirou Abdoulaye with the Governor of Jigawa, His Excellency Mallam Umar Namadi.
IITA DDG Partnerships for Delivery adn Scaling, Dr Tahirou Abdoulaye with the Governor of Jigawa, His Excellency Mallam Umar Namadi.
Following the December 2025 visit of His Excellency Mallam Umar Namadi, FCA, Executive Governor of Jigawa State, to the IITA–CGIAR headquarters, the partnership between Jigawa State and IITA has advanced into a decisive implementation phase. Led by IITA Deputy Director General for Partnerships, Scaling and Delivery, Dr Abdoulaye Tahirou, an IITA delegation recently undertook a scoping and co-design mission to Jigawa State, marking a shift from high-level engagement to concrete project development.
IITA DDG Partnerships for Delivery and Scaling, Dr Tahirou Abdoulaye with the Director General of Jigawa State Agricultural Transformation Agency (JATA) Dr Saifullahi Umar and the IITA and JATA team during one of the field visits.
IITA DDG Partnerships for Delivery and Scaling, Dr Tahirou Abdoulaye with the Director General of Jigawa State Agricultural Transformation Agency (JATA) Dr Saifullahi Umar and the IITA and JATA team during one of the field visits.
The mission, hosted by the Jigawa State Agricultural Transformation Agency (JATA), focused on translating shared agricultural priorities into actionable, science-based programs tailored to the state’s development agenda.
IITA DDG Partnerships for Delivery and Scaling, Dr Tahirou Abdoulaye with the Director General of Jigawa State Agricultural Transformation Agency (JATA) Dr Saifullahi Umar and the IITA and JATA team during a meeting with farmers in Jigawa State.
IITA DDG Partnerships for Delivery and Scaling, Dr Tahirou Abdoulaye with the Director General of Jigawa State Agricultural Transformation Agency (JATA) Dr Saifullahi Umar and the IITA and JATA team during a meeting with farmers in Jigawa State.
As part of the mission, the IITA delegation paid a courtesy visit to Governor Umar Namadi, where discussions centered on strengthening technical collaboration to accelerate agricultural productivity, youth employment, and agribusiness development in the state. Governor Namadi reaffirmed his administration’s commitment to evidence-based agricultural transformation and partnerships that deliver measurable impact for farmers and young people. “Our vision is to transform agriculture in Jigawa State into a modern, productive, and inclusive sector,” Governor Namadi said. “Working with a globally respected institution like IITA allows us to anchor our programs on science, innovation, and sustainability, while creating real opportunities for our farmers and youth.”

From MoU to action

Speaking during a high-level working session held at the IITA office in Kano, Director General of JATA, Dr Saifullahi Umar, described the visit as a critical follow-up to the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed between the Jigawa State Government and IITA in December 2025. He explained that the engagement was deliberately structured to move beyond planning, with emphasis on joint project concept development, review of Jigawa State’s agricultural strategy, and alignment with on-the-ground implementation realities.

Seeing impact on the ground

The JATA team also led the IITA delegation on a field tour of ongoing agricultural programs across the state. The visit showcased cassava value addition initiatives, as well as youth-driven, irrigation-powered horticulture farming systems designed to improve productivity, enhance income, and promote year-round cultivation. The field interactions provided practical insights into how existing interventions can be strengthened and scaled through improved technologies, data systems, and value-chain integration. Reflecting on the visit, Dr Abdoulaye Tahirou emphasized IITA’s commitment to co-creating solutions with the state. “What we are doing in Jigawa goes beyond project design,” Dr Tahirou said. “This is about jointly identifying scalable, science-based solutions that respond to the state’s priorities, whether in cassava value addition, soil health, digital agriculture, or youth-led horticulture. Jigawa State has demonstrated strong political will, and IITA is committed to supporting the state to translate that vision into lasting impact.”

Building a strong technical foundation

To ensure a productive foundation for collaboration, Jigawa State officials presented detailed overviews of the state’s agricultural strategy, priority crops, soil health status, digital agriculture initiatives, and agribusiness ecosystem. This information, stakeholders noted, provides a strategic baseline for the joint co-design process. The strengthened Jigawa–IITA collaboration will focus on four critical areas:
  1. Enhancing production and productivity of key crops
  2. Improving soil health and fertility systems
  3. Advancing digital agriculture and data-driven solutions
  4. Driving youth agribusiness development and employment
With the scoping mission concluded, both parties are expected to move toward finalizing project concepts and implementation frameworks that will deliver tangible benefits for farmers, agripreneurs, and agribusinesses across Jigawa State. Contributed by ’Timilehin Osunde

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Olaosebikan, Olamide

Olamide Deborah Nwanze is a Senior Research Associate specializing in gender mainstreaming research to inform participatory and inclusive breeding, variety development, and seed systems policies regarding root, tuber, and banana (RTB) crops in the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture Headquarters, Ibadan, Nigeria. She is a PhD candidate at the University of Ibadan and holds an MSc and B. Agric in Agricultural Extension and Rural Development. Olamide is a fellow of the African Women in Agricultural Research and Development – Gender Responsive Agricultural Systems Policy (AWARD-GRASP) and the Gender Responsive Researchers Equipped for Agricultural Transformation (GREAT). She seeks to apply her gender-mainstreaming learnings, gender-responsive research, and policy development, and review expertise to facilitate women, youth, children, and vulnerable social group’s access to and adoption of agricultural Innovations that guarantee food, nutrition, income, and livelihood security in Africa. Her current roles include mentoring research fellows, development of guides and training manuals, implementation and adaptation of gender frameworks and tools, value chain actors’ engagement as citizen science partners, policy review and redesign, data management, and analysis. Her current research explores mixed methods and participatory and interdisciplinary approaches to capture and highlight gender dynamics, needs, preferences, and challenges stakeholders face within the agricultural livelihood value chain to prioritize gender-inclusive strategies in breeding programs, policy design, and implementation.

At IITA, she contributes to the implementation of the CGIAR Accelerated Breeding Initiative and Genetic Innovation Programs; participatory and gender research within the NextGen Cassava, HarvestPlus, RTBFoods, and Tricot-ClimMob 1000Farms Projects; and gender knowledge communication via the G-LENS webinar series, video documentary, policy briefs, publications, and blogs.

 

Recent publications

de Sousa, K., van Etten, J., Manners, R. Bello, A., Teeken, B., Olaosebikan, O., et al. 2024. The tricot approach: an agile framework for decentralized on-farm testing supported by citizen science. A retrospective. Agron. Sustain. Dev. 44, 8. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13593-023-00937-1

Madu, T., Onwuka, S., Nwafor, S., Onyemauwa, N., Ejechi, M., Ofoeze, M., Ukeje, B., Eluagu, C., Olaosebikan, O., Okoye, B., 2024. Gender-Inclusive Consumer Studies Improve Cassava Breeding in Nigeria in: Frontiers in Sociology, volume 9, number: 1224504, doi: 10.3389/fsoc.2024.1224504

Olaosebikan, O.; Bello, A.; Utoblo, O.; Okoye, B.; Olutegbe, N.; Garner, E.; Teeken, B.; Bryan, E.; Forsythe, L.; Cole, S.; Madu, T. 2023.  Stressors and Resilience within the Cassava Value Chain in Nigeria: Preferred Cassava Variety Traits and Response Strategies of Men and Women to Inform Breeding. Sustainability 15, 7837. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15107837

Okoye, B., Ofoeze, M., Ejechi, M., Onwuka, S., Nwafor, S., Onyemauwa, N., Ukeje, B., Eluagu, C., Obidiegwu, J.*, Olaosebikan, O., Madu, T.* 2023. Prioritizing preferred traits in the yam value chain in Nigeria: a gender situation analysis in: Frontiers in Sociology, volume 8, number: 1232626, pages 1 – 9, ISSN 2297-7775, 2023. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsoc.2023.1232626/full

Olaosebikan, O., Bello, A. A., de Sousa, K., Ndjouenkeu, R., Adesokan, M., Alamu, E. O., Agbona, A., van Etten, J., Kegah, F. N.*, Dufour, D., Bouniol, A., Teeken, B. 2023. Consumer acceptability of cassava gari-eba food products across cultural and environmental settings using the triadic comparison of technologies approach (tricot) in: Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture,

Teeken, B., Olaosebikan, O., Bello, A. A., Madu, T.*, Cole, S. M. 2023. Qualitative assessment on the positionality and preferences of dyads in relation to cassava-related activities: working with tricot trial citizen scientists https://hdl.handle.net/10568/138326 Type: Manual

Bouniol, A., Ceballos, H., Bello, A. A., Teeken, B., Olaosebikan, O., Owoade, D., Agbona, A., Fotso Kuate, A., Madu, T.*, Okoye, B.*, Ofoeze, M.*, Nwafor, S.*, Onyemauwa, N.*, Adinsi, L.*, Forsythe, L., Dufour, D. 2023. Varietal impact on women’s labour, workload and related drudgery in processing root, tuber and banana crops: focus on cassava in sub-Saharan Africa in: Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, pages 1 – 25, ISSN 0022-5142,

Bello, A. A., Agbona, A., Olaosebikan, O., Edughaen, G., Dufour, D., Bouniol, A., Iluebbey, P., Ndjouenkeu, R.*, Rabbi, I. Y., Teeken, B. 2023. Genetic and environmental effects on processing productivity and food product yield: drudgery of women’s work in: Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, pages 1 – 32, ISSN 0022-5142, 5

Cavicchioli, M., Zimbiti, T., Teeken, B., Nwanze, D.O., Liani, M., Parkes, E. & Bello, A. 2023. IITA-Gender Responsive Breeding Training Report. Genetic Resources Center, IITA-HQ, Ibadan, 21-23 September, 2022. Ibadan, Nigeria: IITA, (34 p.).https://hdl.handle.net/10568/131368

Agbona, A. Peteti P., Teeken B., Olaosebikan O. Bello, A. A., Parkes, E., Rabbi, I. Y., Mueller, L., Egesi, C., Kulakow, P. 2022. Data Management in Multi-disciplinary African RTB Crop Breeding Programs. In: Williamson, H.F., Leonelli, S. (eds) Towards Responsible Plant Data Linkage: Data Challenges for Agricultural Research and Development. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13276-6_5

Lora Forsythe, Pricilla Marimo, Sarah Mayanja, Olamide D. Olaosebikan, Esme Stuart, Bela Teeken, Benjamin Okoye, Tessy Madu, (2021). Cross-product Gender Analysis of RTBfoods Step 2 Gendered Food Mapping on RTB Products. Understanding the Drivers of Trait Preferences and the Development of Multi-user RTB Product Profiles, WP1. London, UK: RTBfoods Field Scientific Report, 30 p.

Teeken, B., Garner, E., Agbona, A., Balogun, I., Olaosebikan, O., Bello, A., Madu, T., Okoye, B., Egesi, C., Kulakow, P. and Tufan, H.A. 2021. Beyond “Women’s Traits”: Exploring How Gender, Social Difference, and Household Characteristics Influence Trait Preferences. Frontiers Sustainable Food Systems 5:740926. https://doi.org/10.3389/fsufs.2021.740926

Teeken, B., Agbona, A., Bello, A., Olaosebikan, O., Alamu, E., Adesokan, M., Awoyale, W., Madu, T., Okoye, B., Chijioke, U., Owoade, D., Okoro, M., Bouniol, A., Dufour, D., Hershey, C., Rabbi, I., Maziya‐Dixon, B., Egesi, C., Tufan, H. and Kulakow, P. (020. Understanding cassava varietal preferences through pairwise ranking of gari‐eba and fufu prepared by local farmer–processors. Int J Food Sci Technol. https://doi.org/10.1111/ijfs.14862

Bela Teeken, Olamide Olaosebikan, Ireti Balogun, Benjamin Okoye, Tessy Madu, Steven Cole, Abolore Bello, Elizabeth Parkes. (2020). Piloting the G+ customer and product profile tools for gender-responsive cassava breeding in Nigeria. Nigeria: International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA). https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11766/13000