The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Umar-Farouq, has disclosed that the ministry has lifted an estimated 15 million families out of poverty through various clusters of National Social Investment Programmes, NSIP.
Umar-Farouq, who stated this during the 23rd edition of President Muhammadu Buhari led-administration’s scorecard series, said with limited resources, NSIP has been able to improve the lives of poor and vulnerable households across the country.
According to the minister, People who never had a means of livelihood now are business owners under the Conditional Cash Transfer, CCT.
“The NSIP has provided assistance and hope to millions of Nigerians. Let me once again list them as the National Homegrown School Feeding Programme, the job creation unit (Npower), the National Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT), and the Government Enterprise and Employment Programme (GEEP).
“The programmes were all initiated by the Federal Government as part of an intervention programme to cater for the welfare and well-being of vulnerable Nigerians. The National Homegrown School Feeding Programme has already captured and fed over 9.9 million pupils across the 36 states of the federation, including the FCT.
“The ministry, through the N-Power Programme has supported over 1.5 million unemployed youths across Nigeria. The ministry has provided and supervised the distribution of relief materials to victims of recent food disasters across the country.
“The ministry carries out impact assessments quarterly by independent monitors to ensure effective service delivery. The National Senior Citizens Centre was established with the mandate to identify the need of senior citizens and cater to them, especially their health and physical well-being.
“The centre has also developed a 10-year strategic plan and commences operationalisation of a National Policy on Ageing, which has also high-level technical support programmes and activities.
“It may interest you to know that I don’t even know the beneficiaries of the CCT programme. It is a transparent programme that I don’t even know the beneficiaries in Zamfara state where I come from because the beneficiaries are the poorest of the poor who are selected by members of the community. As for the Borno IDP camps fire, NEMA and the North East Development Commission have visited to assess the situation as first responders,” she said.