From Our Correspondent
The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Dr Betta Edu, has restated President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s commitment to reducing humanitarian crisis and poverty in Nigeria.
The minister made this known in a statement made available to the newsmen on Sunday.
According to the statement, the Federal Government has taken over phase two of the Youth Empowerment and Social Support Operations (YESSO) and the Community and Social Development Project (CSDP) programmes.
TheNewsZenith reports that YESSO is a social safety net initiative which enhances employment opportunities for the poor and vulnerable youths.
The programme also provides targeted cash transfers to the poor, vulnerable and internally displaced people (IDPs) across Nigeria.
Similarly, CSDP provides grants for human capital development of communities and vulnerable groups to enable them implement various development agendas.
CSDP focuses on education, health, rural electrification, potable water supply, transportation, Socioeconomic development, environment/natural resources and community housing.
The World Bank, according to the statement, also supports the programmes.
The sustainability plans of the World Bank after the end of Phase One of YESSO and CSDP are what
Edu said President Tinubu flagged off phase two to consolidate on successes of phase one through her ministry.
“There was no need for “a misleading report” by a national daily on recent appointments made by the minister on the programmes,” the statement read in part.
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It added that the programmes had neither been completely phased out nor ended as the report erroneously suggested.
“The ministry, under Dr Edu, has put proper structures in place before take-off of the second phase of the programmes. This is to ensure goal delivery and attraction of other development partners.
“The two programmes are now wholly owned by the Federal Government under the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation.
“Also, the National Social Safety Net office will fund their take-off as signed in the sustainability plan of the programmes,” it stated.
accordingly, it noted that the new strategy to change the programme structure is for effective service delivery.
“And this is based on the new mandate given to the ministry birthed the 2.0 CSDP and YESSO programmes.’’
According to the ministry, the legal agreement between Nigeria and the World Bank is intact.
“Phase two of the programmes was in line with the agreement as part of the sustainability plans.
“And with the takeover by the federal government, President Tinubu’s administration can now advocate for their scale-up,” the ministry state.
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