The Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development (FMHADMSD) has said that over 9 million students in 530,000 public primary schools has benefitted from the National Home-Grown School Feeding Programme (NHGSFP), launched by the Federal Government of Nigeria in 2016.
The Ministry and United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) made this known in a joint press statement in Abuja on Tuesday stated that the breakthrough feeding initiative has made it one of the largest school feeding programmes in Africa.
They noted that the initiative has led to a significant increase in school enrollment across the country with a much-needed boost to local economies by buying the products of smallholder farmers and providing jobs to more than 107,000 cooks from low-income families.
The initiative also made schools provide local farmers with a predictable outlet for their products, leading to a stable income, more investments and higher productivity while children enjoy healthy, diversified food; thus making it more likely that they will stay in school, perform better, and improve their adult job prospects.
According to the Minister of the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Farouq noted that the NHGSFP remains an important intervention of the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari.
Farouq explained that through it, hunger, malnutrition, poverty, education can all be addressed. It is an investment that is fully funded by the Federal Government of Nigeria because of its sheer potential as a development driver.
“We at the FMHADMSD are here to ensure that this programme is strengthened and sustained so that it can continue to support the needs of the children, families, women and communities it targets”.
WFP Country Director, Ronald Sibanda stated that one of the best ways of fighting hunger and preventing malnutrition among children is to provide them with a healthy school meal.
He explained that Nigeria is a good example of where the Government has taken the lead from day one and invested resources and funding into the design and implementation of its National Home-Grown School Feeding Programme.
“WFP is backing the next stage with a significant transfer of ICT equipment. This includes tablets with access to the PLUS Schools Menus – a free tool to help state Nutrition Officers design nutritious menus for schools”
He opined that the hardware will not only support the Ministry’s efforts to digitalize its monitoring and evaluation system, but also enable the national roll out of the PLUS School Menu Tool developed by WFP to standardize cost-effective menu development.
“This is a great initiative and WFP is very pleased to provide technical support for the Government of Nigeria”.