Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Umar-Farouq, says the Federal Government will enrol about five million pupils more into the National Home Grown School Feeding Programme (NHGSFP) by 2023.
Farouq made the disclosure during a stakeholders meeting for the enumeration of beneficiaries and scaling up of the NHGSFP in Zamfara.
This is contained in a statement by Special Assistant on Corporate Communications to the Minister, Halima Oyelade, on Friday in Abuja.
She said over nine million pupils are benefitting from one free nutritious meal a day during school term nationwide with the mandate to reach an additional five million pupils by 2023.
She added that with over 100,000 cooks employed and more than 100,000 smallholder farmers participating in the value chain, the NHGSFP is a potential for socio-economic development and it needs to be strengthened, scaled up and sustained nationwide.
Oyelade said the Zamfara and Federal NHGSFP teams, as well as key stakeholders, are working jointly and closely to verify existing numbers of beneficiaries on the programme and update the records for better effectiveness, transparency, and accountability.
“To this end, while thanking the Zamfara Government for its commitment in implementing the NHGSFP, I also wish to encourage us all to do more to ensure more children benefit from this programme,” she said.
She further explained that the NHGSFP was designed as a multi-faceted intervention to drive up school enrollment, boost nutrition of the pupils, support local production of food, and encourage employment and income generation.
She said that the programme is specifically aimed at the provision of one nutritious meal to all pupils in public primary schools in classes one to three.
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