Rural women in the Great Sheda community of Kwali Area Council in Abuja have received a newly built agro-processing center equipped with a cassava peeling and grinding machine through a partnership between UN Women and the TY Danjuma Foundation, in an intervention that stakeholders said would significantly reduce the physical labour burden of cassava processing while expanding the economic capacity of women who depended on Akpu production for their livelihoods.
For years, processors in the community worked by hand through a labour-intensive process that consumed hours each day and limited the volume of output any single household could manage. The new facility was designed to compress that timeline dramatically, freeing time and energy that women could redirect toward additional productive activities, expanded production volumes, or other income-generating ventures.
UN Women Representative to Nigeria and ECOWAS Beatrice Eyong said the project was an investment in productivity and economic future rather than simply a piece of equipment, saying the reductions in physical burden it created would enable women to earn more, diversify their activities, and contribute more effectively to both family welfare and community development.
TY Danjuma Foundation Board of Trustees Chairman Hannatu Gentles described women as the backbone of the rural economy and expressed confidence that the Akpu Women Association and other processors who would use the facility would leverage it to build stronger businesses and improve household welfare over time.
Former FCT Mandate Secretary Adedayo Benjamins-Laniyi said access to modern processing tools would strengthen food security, stimulate local economic growth, and build community resilience in ways that extended beyond the immediate beneficiaries to surrounding settlements.
