FG earmarks N500bn for social intervention programme

The Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, has said that the Federal Government will set aside N500 billion in 2017 budget to address hunger and poverty.

Ahmed said this while addressing newsmen at the maiden edition of Nutrition Week in Abuja on Monday.

She said that the 2017 budget was being prepared with a clear commitment to continue with all the social intervention programmes which had already started.

She recalled that the Federal Government allocated N500 billion for similar programme in 2016 budget.

The minister said that School Feeding Programme was one of the most important components of the Federal Government’s social intervention programmes.

“School feeding programme has already started in some states and it is being implemented in collaboration with the Federal Government.

“The Federal Government is only coordinating to help standardise the processes and procedures but the states remain the implementors.

“We look at the states’ plans and provide part of the resources and the states will also contribute to implement the programme,’’ She said.

The minister said that the Federal Government had made a commitment to feed 5.5 million primary school children in 2016.

According to her, the Federal Government is feeding pupils from primary one to three in some states while the states will feed students from primary four to six.

Ahmed said that the aim of the programmme was to address malnutrition and increase enrollment in schools.

“We have found out from study conducted that if a child is suffering from malnutrition, it will affect his learning process.

“ One of the key ways of addressing malnutrition at childhood level is to implement the National Policy of Food and Nutrition,’’ she said.

The minister said that the policy was formulated by the National Committee of Food and Nutrition in 1998 and approved by the Federal Executive Council in 2002.

She said that the policy was formulated to deal with the multi-faceted problem of food and nutrition, using a multi sector and multi-disciplinary programme approach.

“The vision of the policy is to have a country where the people are equitably secure in food and nutrition with a high quality of life and social-development.

“This will contribute to human capital development objectives of Vision 20:2020 while the goal of the policy is to attain optimal nutritional status for all Nigerians.

“The goal is to attain optimal nutritional status for Nigerians with particular emphasis on most vulnerable groups such as children, adolescent women, elderly and groups with special nutritional needs,’’ Ahmed said.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the Federal Government will on Tuesday launch the revised National Policy on Food and Nutrition (NPFN), aimed at reducing hunger and malnutrition by 50 per cent by 2025