Nigeria’s Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Dr. Betta Edu, has restated President Bola Tinubu’s commitment to reducing the humanitarian crisis and poverty in Nigeria.
The minister made this known in a statement made available to the News Agency of Nigeria on Sunday by her Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Rasheed Olanrewaju.
According to the statement, the Federal Government has taken over the Youth Empowerment and Social Support Operations and the Community and Social Development Project Programmes with the flag-off of phase two of the programmes.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the Youth Empowerment and Social Support Operations is a social safety net initiative, which enhances increased access of poor and vulnerable youths to employment opportunities.
The programme also provides targeted cash transfers to the poor, vulnerable and internally displaced people across Nigeria.
Similarly, the Community and Social Development Project provides grants for the human capital development of communities and vulnerable groups to enable them to embark on various development agendas.
It focuses on Education, Health, Rural Electrification, potable water supply, Transportation, Socioeconomic development, environment/natural resources and community housing.
The statement added that the World Bank also supports the programmes.
According to the statement, the sustainability plans of the World Bank after the end of Phase One of YESSO and CSDP is what President Tinubu has unfolded in the YESSO and CSDP 2.0 (Phase Two) through the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation.
It stated that there was no need for what it called a misleading report by a national daily on recent appointments made by the Minister on the programmes.
It added that the programmes had neither been completely phased out nor ended as the report erroneously suggested.
“What ended was the first phase of the programme necessitating the take-off of the second phase, tagged 2. 0 which the federal government has now taken over and the World Bank has committed further support as part of the sustainability plan.’’
“The Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation under Dr. Edu deemed it fit to put proper structures in place before the smooth take-off of the second phase of the programme to ensure goal delivery and attract even other development partners, hence the recent appointments.
“The two programmes are now wholly owned by the Federal Government under the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation.
“Their take-off will be funded by the National Social Safety Net office as signed in the sustainability plan of the programmes.
“The new strategy to change the programme structure for effective delivery based on the new mandate given to the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation birthed the 2.0 CSDP and Yesso programmes,’’ it stated.
According to the statement, the legal agreement between Nigeria and the World Bank is not tampered with.
“Phase two of the programs was in line with the agreement as part of the sustainability plans and with the takeover by the Federal Government, President Tinubu’s government can now advocate for their scale-up, but a structure must be in place.
“Given the federal government’s irrevocable drive to reduce the humanitarian crisis and eradicate poverty in the country, it is important to note that the phase one projects supported by the World Bank alone cannot take Nigeria out of its multidimensional poverty.
“Remarkably, phase one of the programme was successful and impactful which was why the President approved the 2.0 and the need to put structure in place to meet up the standard requirements,’’ Olanrewaju stated.
(NAN)
