The mandate of CPAT is reflected in VCDP’s Financing Agreement signed between the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) Section II, Schedule 1: Part II(a) of the Financing Agreement states “CPAT will provide advisory service and support services to VCDP and other IFAD-funded Projects/ Programmes in Nigeria. Based on lessons learned and identified needs, the support services will cover financial management and procurement, as well as cross-cutting areas, i.e., environment and climate change, gender and youth, monitoring and evaluation, knowledge management and communication, and conflict resolution in the IFAD-assisted Projects/ Programmes in Nigeria”.
The specific objectives of CPAT are to:
Mainstreaming Environment & Climate Change Adaptation Activities into IFAD-supported Programmes. Advisory services on the overall management of activities related to mainstreaming climate change adaptation measures and sustainable environmental practices into the production, processing and marketing of commodities across IFAD funded projects.
Promoting Knowledge Capitalization, Sharing and Communication.
Providing technical leadership and guidance to IFAD projects and partners on financial services to rural communities, the unbanked and underserved populations, smallholder farmers and other agricultural value chain actors within the anticipated IFAD-funded projects.
Providing guidance to all the IFAD projects on the overall Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) strategy and the implementation of related activities, ensuring the alignment of the M&E strategy with the arrangements of the FMAFS to ensure harmonized tracking of results from the implementation of IFAD projects.
Mainstreaming Nutrition and Dietary Diversity into IFAD projects. Facilitate the analysis of nutrition gaps along the supply chain of priority commodities in the project locations.
Providing financial management guidance to support risk management, coherent and consistent application of procedures, and cross-cutting activities of the projects’ finance units. Also, to ascertain and evaluate the adequacy and effectiveness of the financial management and internal control framework; facilitate compliance with IFAD and Federal Government project financing agreements, IFAD disbursement procedures, the Project Implementation Manual, etc. Identify critical weaknesses (if any) and areas for improvement.
Provide technical advisory services and capacity building in procurement to projects to help accelerate implementation of approved AWPB while maintaining compliance with the IFAD and Federal Government project financing agreements, IFAD disbursement procedures, Project Implementation Manual, etc; identify critical weaknesses if any, and areas for improvement.
Overall Coordination of CPAT Operations.
CPAT reports to FMAFS through the Projects Coordinating Unit (PCU) that is responsible for projects coordination.
CPAT to organize and facilitate project implementation support meetings and strategic dialogue meetings (aiming at anticipating challenges and identifying remedial actions):
CPAT to organize and facilitate project implementation support meetings and strategic dialogue meetings (aiming at anticipating challenges and identifying remedial actions):
CPAT stands for the Country Programme Advisory Team. It is a unit established by the Federal Government of Nigeria and IFAD to provide technical and financial management advisory support to all IFAD-assisted projects in Nigeria.