The Nigeria Fadama National Development Series

Over the last 20 years, poor rural
farmers in Nigeria have seen the benefits of community
organization as a tool for local economic development under
the National Fadama Development Project series. They have
witnessed improvements in rural areas that have embraced a
more inclusive and participatory model of local economic
decision making. Many communities have come together under
the umbrella of new institutional arrangements for
addressing local issues. These arrangements have visibly
improved economic conditions, boosted agricultural incomes,
and helped reduce rural poverty. This transformation has
taken place in challenging environments, where basic
agriculture remains the principal source of livelihoods and
where rural stakeholders have not traditionally participated
in cooperative local economic arrangements. This case study
aims to show how learning and adaptation have been important
to the success of the Fadama project, and how lessons
learned can help inform new operations in agricultural
reform and rural development more broadly. The case study
explores the following question: How did the Fadama project
learn and adapt to changing circumstances, including the
social and political context, as it evolved from a pilot
program to a successful national project? The chronological
review looks at how the program’s success can be attributed
to its capacity to build on existing knowledge of local
conditions, to pilot and learn before scaling up, to
incorporate and test global practices, and to build
important new institutional structures at the local level.
This case study also examines how the evolving institutional
structure ultimately led to a change in the social contract
among farmers, other stakeholders, and different levels of
government, resulting in a cultural shift in the process of
local development. This shift was prompted in part by a
transfer of global knowledge and adaptation of prevailing
global practices.