School Feeding: FG Says It’s Empowering 10million Pupils

August 31, 2019

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School Feeding: FG Says It’s Empowering 10million Pupils

The Federal Government has said about ten million pupils are currently benefitting from its homegrown school feeding programme.

The Special Adviser to the President on Social Investment, Mrs Maryam Uwais, said this on Friday when she led the management team of the National Social Investments Programme on a visit to the new Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, Clem Agba.

The presidential aide, who briefed the minister on the activities of the NSIO and the level of implementation of the various components of the programme, said the initiative had made huge impact on the socio-economic well-being of millions of poor and vulnerable citizens.

She told the minister that the beneficiaries of the programme were in 32 states of the federation, adding that about 400,000 poor and vulnerable households in 25 states including those in Borno’s Internally Displaced Persons camps were enrolled into the National Cash Transfer Programme.

This, according to her, is in addition to over two million people who had benefitted from interest-free loans through Marketmoni, Tradermoni and Farmermoni facilitated under the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme.

Uwais described the N-Power Programme, which had engaged over 540,000 young people in all the 774 local government areas of the country, as a veritable platform for the youths to explore their potential.

She said, “We are doing very well with the N-power Innovation hubs, which have been quite successful. With one innovation hub in every geopolitical zone in the country, young people who have brilliant ideas can now be effectively engaged.

“Each hub has its own theme that is relevant to the peculiarities of the zone it is situated. For instance, the North-East is more about humanitarian issues just as the South-South hub focuses on oil and gas, education, security, among other areas.

“The good news is that we have seen our young people leverage this platform to create apps and other devices that provide solutions to everyday problems.