No fewer than 12 million school children benefitted from the National Home Grown School Feeding Programme (NHGSFP) in 2022, NewsSpecng learnt.
Besides, 126,927 cooks/vendors also benefitted from the programme that was executed in 57,517schools nationwide.
The Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development disclosed this on Wednesday at the stakeholders meeting of NHGSFP.
The workshop which was held in Abuja was to on validate and strengthen the programme.
The Minister, Hajiya Sadiya Umar Farouq in her opening remark said the programme has so far boost enrolment of children into schools across the country.
She said, “As at the end of 2022, total population of beneficiary on the NHGSFP nationwide includes about 12 million school children in 57, 517 schools with 126, 927 cooks/vendors.”
She further added, “It is worthy to note that the NHGSFP is one of the clusters in the National Social Investment Programmes (NSIP) established to increase school enrolment, retention and attendance.
“The policy rationale is to strengthen ownership and commitment of the programme at the Federal, State levels of government, key sectors and relevant stakeholders” Farouq said.
Speaking on the validation exercise, she said “The purpose of this workshop is to validate the policy document. We have all stakeholders here; the validation is the final lap to put our names on paper to tell our leaders that the programme is working well.
“And that it will continue to make progress. I hope at the end we will cross the Ts and dot the Is so that we can have an authentic document for NHGSFP.
Farouq, who was represented by the National Coordinator of NSIP, Dr Umar Bindir said the Federal Government has made significant progress in expanding the programme.
She added that the NHGSFP provides a social safety net promoting positive education, health and nutrition benefits.
The Minister explained that the programme was anchored on five policy pillars namely; Education, Agriculture, Social Protection, Health and Nutrition and Community Development.
“So we are to revised and contextualised the draft policy based on further inputs and comments received. Engage a National Consultant-UNWFP and Regional Consultant- Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs to fast track the policy.
“Next step is stakeholders and community engagements, consolidation of state and regional inputs and comments, and produce final draft for the Minister to present to Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF) and Federal Executive Council for Approval,” Farouq said.
Similarly, the Technical Assistant to Farouq and also the Team Lead of the NHGSFP, Ms Aishatu Digil in her presentation of the policy said the key word in the programme is collaboration.
According to her, while the Federal Government provide the funding and capacity, the state governments handles the implementation, adding that the programme is an incentive to make children learn in schools.
“We want to use the programme to promote good nutrition. We also want to see how we can get more funding and provide financial structure on how we can accept donations and increase the feeding for pupils on primary 4 to 6,” Digil said.
She gave an overview of the programme which include inception, achievements, challenges, prospects and strategies for further progress.
The validation brought all stakeholders in the programme including World Food Programme, NGF, officials from Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development amongst others.
