Dr. Precious Gbeneol, the Senior Special Assistant to President Goodluck Jonathan on Millennium Development Goals, SSAP-MDGs has appealed to all levels of Nigeria government as well as the private sector to come up with more creative ways of creating employment as a means of alleviating poverty.
The Presidential Adviser who said this on the occasion of World Poverty Day held on Thursday noted that putting more people to work remains the most sustainable way to eradicate poverty.
The presidential aide also acknowledged the efforts of the Federal Government to create jobs through different initiatives like the Conditional Cash transfer (CCT), YouWin and other efforts aimed at boosting the productive capacity in the Nigerian economy especially urged support for the Agricultural Transformation Agenda of President Goodluck Jonathan.
“Agriculture remains the key sector that can help Nigeria break the yoke of poverty.
A statement issued by the Head of Information and Communications, Dr Christopher Otabor quoted Dr Gbeneol as saying that “though a lot has been achieved in this sector in the past two years, I will appeal to our youths to embrace agriculture as a means of viable employment by taking advantage of the various policies of government,” said Gbeneol.
Dr Gbeneol noted that Nigeria has made real progress in the efforts to eradicate extreme poverty since the country, alongside other developed countries adopted the Millennium Development Goals in 2000. Specifically she noted that Nigeria has partly achieved the goal one which deals with eradication of extreme poverty and hunger ahead of target date of 2015 by reducing the proportion of people suffering from hunger by 50 per cent.
Nigeria was honoured for the achievement at the week-long 38th session of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, FAO’s highest governing body in Rome earlier in the year, which was designed to review the state of hunger and food security in the world alongside 37 other developing countries, institutions and individuals for outstanding action against hunger. FAO had indicated that Nigeria got the award because it has been able to reduce the number of her citizens suffering from hunger from 19.31 million in 1990 and 1992 to 13.38 in 2010 and 2012.
The world body also noted that there has been a decline in the prevalence of under-nourishment in the country from 19.3 per cent in 1990/1991 to 8.5 per cent by 2010/2012. This is below the MDG target of 9.7 per cent that was set for 2015. While noting that the progress recorded by Nigeria has been attributed to the commitment of federal government to the fight against hunger through a multi-sectoral approach which has the Agricultural Transformation Agenda at its centre, Gbeneol said it is now up to Nigerians to ensure that the momentum is sustained. She also said the Office of the Senior Special Assistant to the President on MDGs has also played a central role in the success of the agricultural transformation agenda through interventions aimed at enhancing food security such as Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) programme being implemented under the Conditional Grants Scheme.
“The 56,000 low-income households engaged in CCT scheme across 24 states of the federation will be given the sum of N100, 000 as principal startup capital for an agricultural enterprise at their exit from the programme. The condition for the release of this sum is the completion of 3-month training in an agro-business. Households are supported to invest in poultry, fishery, backyard vegetable production, amongst other areas,” said Gbeneol.
She also said OSSAP-MDGs has consistently supported the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development in three principal areas which include training of youth and women in agricultural practices, funding of extension services, and construction of rural feeder roads. With the support, Gbeneol noted that Federal Ministry of Agriculture has in the past three years been able to train 5,000 youths in ten different value chains and provide start-up packages for 6,000 youths including access to credit and other inputs through the Growth Enhancement Scheme (GES); training of 2,500 women in poultry, bull fattening, sheep and goat production, bee keeping, crop value chains and extension among others.
