Sat, 04 September, 2010
10 FACTS ABOUT RSSDA
1. RSSDA is the acronym for ‘The Rivers State Sustainable Development Agency’. It is set up by State Law as an autonomous Agency under the Office of the Governor, to whom the RSSDA Director reports regularly.  The Agency also reports to a partner – constituted Board consisting of representatives of donor agencies, oil companies, civil society, as well as State and Federal Governments.
2. The Agency was set up in 2007 under an autonomous legal framework in accordance with the RSSDA Act of 2007 and subsequent amendment in 2008.  RSSDA has working collaboration with Rivers State line Ministries and other relevant Government agencies and is subject to legislative oversight by the State House of Assembly
3. RSSDA is a multi-sector intervention agency, a fact which enables it, unlike other agencies and line ministries of the State, to undertake projects in a wide variety of areas, including youth development and re-orientation, SMEs, education, health, skills acquisition, employment, local government, etc.
4. The Agency aims principally to tackle rural poverty, build effective community institutions and viable local economies across the rural areas [and urban slums] of the State, with particular interest in youth development.
5. The work of the Agency is supported by the federal government, its partners comprising international development organisations, Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), the oil companies – Shell Petroleum Development Company, Total E&P, Nigerian Agip Oil Company (NAOC) and ExxonMobil, ChevronTexaco, banks and international development organisations.
6. The RSSDA has a 15-year intervention programme plan, which is designed to be executed in 5 cycles of 3 years each, with impact evaluations at the end of each 3-year cycle.
7. RSSDA runs a large overseas scholarship programme of over 450 Rivers State students sent on various academic and professional courses to the UK, Singapore, Canada and Benin Republic between 2008 and 2009.
8. Within the first 12 months of operation, RSSDA has set a record in the agriculture, aquaculture and related sectors in the State.  The agency supports the production of catfish and fingerlings in Rivers State producing over a million fingerlings every 6 weeks for fish multiplication.  RSSDA also supports the production of commercial quantities of cassava and is one of the leading producers of eggs from its poultries which are stocked with 45,000 layers.
9. In its short existence, the Agency has already impacted the lives of some communities through agriculture, aqua-culture, education, health and telecommunication programmes in each of the 23 Local Government Areas of the State.
10. The Agency operates from its central office in Port Harcourt and works closely with grassroots stakeholders through its 9 [nine] zonal field offices in various parts of the State, each of which is led by a Resident Zonal Coordinator, under whom are Resident LGA Community Interface Officers, who monitor our projects and ensure a positive operational relationship between the agency and all segments of our rural populace.

New Dawn


The Rivers State Sustainable Development Agency (RSSDA) is a strategic intervention initiative of the Rivers State government set up under an autonomous legal framework by the State Government to re-focus development effort in the areas of poverty alleviation, rural grassroots and youth empowerment in the State.
To execute our mandate, we deploy partnership to tap into the wealth of experience and support of organisations such as The World Bank, USAID, DFID, ADP, NNPC, SPDC, NDDC and other agencies of the Federal and Rivers State Government.

 

 

Sustainable Development - The RSSDA perspective

For us, Sustainable Development is holistic socio-economic transformation of the rural areas of Rivers State with a long term horizon, which ensures that the needs of the rural dwellers are met through results-oriented and professionally supported programs and projects.

We believe community projects must meet current socio-economic needs, grow in scope and impact over at least one generation (15-20 years) and become adaptable to changing development needs into the foreseeable future.
RSSDA advocates that such an outcome should be powered by the engine of economic production and income-earning by the largest possible number of currently poor, unemployed and under-employed people of Rivers State.

In practical terms, we envision the core of sustainable development as representing the emergence of viable, self-adjusting, grassroots level economic activities, which will have active commercial linkages with urban markets in Rivers State, across the Niger Delta, in Nigeria as a whole and internationally.

REQUEST FOR QUOTES
Submission of tenders closes 16th August, 2010


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