The Minister for Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Hajiya Sadiya Faruk, disclosed this at the Flag-Off of the Grant for Rural Women Project and Symbolic Disbursement in Anambra state on Sunday.
The Minister represented by the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry, Bashir Nura Alkali, said the Grant for Rural Women programme was introduced in 2020 to sustain the social inclusion agenda of President Buhari’s Administration.
“With the creation of the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development by President Buhari in 2019, these programmes are being restructured and revamped to respond to peculiarities of different parts of the country. This is to ensure that the right beneficiaries are targeted, and to enhance impact on target beneficiaries. The Ministry is also working tirelessly to address some of the socioeconomic problems that are bedeviling all parts of the country by strengthening the humanitarian-development-peace nexus” she said.
She also said that since the inception of President Muhammadu Buhari’s Administration in 2015, the Federal Government has paid more attention to addressing the plight of the poor and vulnerable in the country despite the economic slump and glaring revenue challenges.
According to her, since the introduction of the scheme in 2016, it has impacted positively on the lives of the poor and vulnerable in Nigeria as over 12 million households have benefitted from NSIP interventions in the last 5 years.
“It is consistent with the President’s now national vision of lifting 100 million Nigerians out of poverty in 10 years. It is designed to provide a one-off grant to some of the poorest and most vulnerable women in rural and semi-urban areas of the country. A cash grant of N20, 000.00 will be disbursed to about 125,000 poor women across the 36 States of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory. Our target in Anambra State is to disburse the grant to about 2,800 beneficiaries across all Local Government Councils. The grant is expected to increase income and productive assets of target beneficiaries. It is our hope that the beneficiaries of this programme will make good use of the grant to generally contribute towards improving their living standards.