ALDDN: Advancing Local Dairy Development in Nigeria

In 2020, Ndidi Nwuneli, founder and CEO of Sahel Consulting in Nigeria, faced a thorny set of problems. Her firm partnered with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in a large project to develop the local dairy industry as a way to facilitate equitable growth and conserve foreign exchange. The Nigerian dairy market was dominated by imported, powdered milk, but the country had a large population of cows owned by pastoralists. Nwuneli had to devise a plan to get local dairy processors, multinational firms, local pastoralists, and the Nigerian government to work together to make local cows more efficient, connect smallholder farmers with processors, and compete with imported milk powder. The stakes were high: the project, if successful, could play a large part in reducing Nigeria’s deadly farmer-herder conflict and reducing the country’s macroeconomic imbalances. The case explores the variety of interests involved and asks students to debate whether Nwuneli and others should push for protectionist policies as a way to catalyze local production.