Nigeria: $750m World Bank Support Will Complement FG’s Poverty Alleviation Scheme, Says VP Osinbajo

Nigeria’s Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo has expressed optimism that the $750 million loan from the World Bank would complement the federal government’s job creation and poverty alleviation schemes aimed at taking 100 million Nigerians out of poverty in ten years.

The government programmes also include State Cash Transfer Units, Agriculture Development Agencies, Job Creation Unit/MSE Support Units supported by the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP) of the Administration.

Osinbajo stated this Thursday at the Conference Hall of the State House, Abuja, during the National Launch of the NG-CARES programme implementation with the World Bank’s $750 million loan.

NG-CARES- is a multi-sectoral programme, which in addition to the ongoing implementation of the Economic Sustainability Plan (ESP), is a furtherance of the Federal Government’s response to the socio-economic fallouts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Noting that the programme would build on diverse and extensive interventions by the Federal Government, the Vice President said the, “NG-CARES programme is designed to support vulnerable and poor Nigerians, provide immediate emergency relief to smallholder farmers and SMEs that were adversely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.”

According to him, the World Bank loan, “will be over a period of 2 years (2021-2023), and the intervention allocation to each State is $20million ex-ante and $15million to FCT, and $15million for the NG CARES Support Unit.

“The programme is to be driven by states using the Programme for Results-PforR-delivery mechanism.”

The VP further stressed that the programme would further complement the federal government’s plan to scale up the number of beneficiaries of its social schemes, subsidy and grants to support individuals, households and MSMEs in the multi-year Development Plan for 2021 – 2024.

He mentioned that the Plan, “was developed within the context of our response to the COVID-19 crisis and the Economic Sustainability Plan serving as the bridge.”
Osinbajo added that in order to ensure successful programme implementation, the federal government would provide quality assurance, monitoring, capacity building and technical assistance to States and FCT on project activities and results.

“Consequently, the federal government has inaugurated the Federal CARES Steering Committee (FCSC), the Federal CARES Technical Committee (FCTC) and the Federal CARES Support Unit (FCSU) to provide overall policy direction, technical support to all the States and FCT and advise Mr. President appropriately.”

The Vice President added that he looked forward to the “prompt and effective implementation of the programme, both at the Federal and States levels,” even as he urged implementing agencies to “fully deploy their wealth of experience and expertise to ensure the successful take-off and implementation of the NG-CARES programme.”

Deji Elumoye in Abuja

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