NIGERIA. Abuja: In June 2021, President Mohammed Buhari set up a committee headed by the Vice-President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, to lift 100 million Nigerians out of poverty within ten years through the National Poverty Reduction and Growth Strategy scheme (NPRGS).
The NPRGS is a poverty alleviation program created to achieve the President’s ambitious plan of lifting 100 million people out of poverty within 10 years. The program would help accelerate poverty reduction through economic growth and social protection programs.
But a year later, the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that N400 billion has been set aside to implement several poverty reduction programmes.
Abdullahi Sule, the governor of Nasarawa State, told reporters shortly after a meeting of the National Steering Committee of NPRGS in the presidential villa that the goal of the meeting was to examine further the implementation strategies and the approval of the funds to strengthen the program.
“The last meeting we had, the fourth meeting, we could set up various working groups that were going to prepare the total budget that was required. So, they could do that and then we could also obtain the president’s approval”, Sule said.
Sule added that the scheme’s operation would be made easier by the president’s approval of the fund, and the committee would be forced to start the scheme’s implementation phase.
“We must commend the effort of the technical committee for their relentless fight to gain approval of funds for NPRGS. We appreciate your people,” Sule said.
NPRGS program
According to Sule, the Humanitarian Ministry would receive N350 billion from the N400 billion disbursement to enhance a number of programmes, including the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP), Conditional Cash Transfer, Farmer Money, and Market Money, among others.
N50 billion will be further allocated to numerous programmes in the Ministry of Agriculture for solar electricity and rural roads.
The COVID-19 pandemic, which the World Bank attributes to the rise in poverty, is expected to increase the number of impoverished Nigerians from 85.2 million to 90 to 95.1 million. Its report, A Better Future for All Nigerians: Nigeria Poverty Assessment 2022, made this claim.
The report added that sluggish growth, low human capital, labor market weaknesses and exposure to shocks are major causes of Nigeria’s poverty reduction drive.
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