Nigeria’s Biosafety Agency Funding Challenge
Nigeria’s Biosafety Agency Funding Challenge
The National Biosafety Management Agency (NBMA), an agency under the Federal Ministry of Environment, was established in 2015 with the mandate to provide regulatory framework, institutional and administrative mechanism for safety measures in the application of modern biotechnology in Nigeria, thereby preventing any adverse effect on human health, animals, plants, and environment.
According to the Act establishing NBMA, the objectives of the Agency are to: (a) establish and strengthen the institutional arrangement on biosafety matters in Nigeria; (b) safeguard human health, biodiversity and the environment from any potential adverse effect of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) including food safety; (c) ensure safety in the use of modern biotechnology and provide holistic approach to the regulation of genetically modified organisms; (d) provide measures for the case-by-case assessment o