Niger govt to boost women's means of livelihood

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Niger State Governor, Mohammed Umaru Bago, has reiterated his administration’s commitment to give priority attention to women’s empowerment and other initiatives that will boost their means of livelihood.

The Governor gave the assurance during an interface with a group of women, under the aegis of Hazaka Women Affinity Group, in Tufa Community, Gurara Local Government Area at the weekend.

The group is one of the benefitting women groups of “Nigeria For Women Project”; a World Bank assisted programme aimed at improving the livelihoods of women. The Governor said that the state government will pay an additional N1billion matching grants to enable more women to benefit from the initiative.

Governor Umaru Bago further assured the women, who are mostly rice farmers, that a modern rice processing mill would be built to enable them to produce and mill their paddy rice.

He also promised that primary healthcare and vocational training centres would be provided for the Community under the State Ministry of Education and Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management to off-take of paddy rice from the women for the Federal government’s School Feeding Programme and some other humanitarian services of the two ministries in order to encourage the women.

The Coordinator of Nigeria For Women Project, Niger State chapter, Bello Sarki, explained that the initiative is targeted at empowering women with grants ranging from N30,000 to N60,000,stressing that some members should also collect loans within their groups to boost their trade

He noted that 1,118 groups, made up of 20 women each, were registered in Gurara Local Government Council.

Some of the beneficiaries, Aisha Ahmad, Rukayya Faruk and Salamatu Ibrahim, who appreciated the state government and the World Bank for the kind gesture, highlighted that the initiative has been beneficial to them tremendously as they have all become business owners,self-reliant and are contributing to the upkeep of their families as women and housewives.

Meanwhile, Governor Umaru Bago on his way back to Minna, paid an unscheduled inspection tour of Gurara Waterfalls with a view to revamping the Waterfalls to further boost the tourism potential of the state.

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