FG targets 14m pupils in school feeding programme by 2023

The Federal Government, on Monday, disclosed that it is targeting to feed 14 million school children under the National Home-Grown School Feeding Programme (NHGSFP) by 2023.

The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Umar Farouq, stated this in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital, during a Stakeholders Engagement on Enumeration of Beneficiaries and Scaling up of the programme.

Farouq, who was represented by a Director in the Ministry, AbdulRaman Babatunde Jaji, said, over nine million pupils benefitted from the one free nutritious meal a day nationwide during the last session.

She added that the government would be targeting additional five million pupils by 2023.

The Minister said the government was engaging stakeholders across the country to measure the success and shortcomings of the programme in order to improve on it in the coming session.

She noted that the stakeholders’ engagement on enumeration of beneficiaries and scale-up of the programme became imperative to enable the government to acquire adequate data of pupils and to also capture more beneficiaries in the next session.

She said, “We are here in Ogun State on the strength of our partnership and mutual recognition of the need to do more on the NHGSFP, to bring more Nigerians under the umbrella of the government’s social protection mechanism, to look at scaling up the numbers of pupils benefiting from the programme as directed by President Muhammadu Buhari.

“Over nine million pupils benefited from the one free nutritious meal a day during the school term nationwide and now we have the mandate to reach an additional five million pupils by 2023.

“With over 100,000 cooks employed and more than 100,000 smallholder farmers participating in this value chain, the NHGSFP is a serious potential for socio-economic development and it needs to be strengthened, scaled up and sustained.”

In his response, the Secretary to the State Government (SSG), Mr Tokunbo Talabi lamented that the number of beneficiaries in the state was reduced from 280,000 to less than 200,000 and urged the Minister to address the issue.

“The feedback we are getting is that there are quite a lot of schools that are yet to be included in the programme and I will be glad if your team can support our own team to get those schools listed in the programme,” the SSG said.

He assured that the state would do everything possible to ensure that the programme achieves success in the state.

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FG targets 14m pupils in school feeding programme by 2023

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