The Federal Executive Council (FEC) has approved the establishment of a Humanitarian and Poverty Alleviation Trust Fund to provide relief to disaster victims and vulnerable Nigerians.
The fund was designed to generate up to $5 billion annually and will be governed by a board that will oversee its implementation.
FEC will include the Minister of Finance and other relevant ministers.
The fund will be financed through contributions from the government, private sector, development partners, philanthropic individuals, and other innovative forms of crowd-funding and pooling of funds together.
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The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Betta Edu disclosed while briefing State House correspondents at the end of the third council meeting presided over by President Bola Tinubu at the Council Chamber, Presidential Villa, Abuja.
Edu stated that the fund was a flexible form of financing that could help Nigeria adequately respond to humanitarian crises and challenges as well as adequately address the issue of poverty in Nigeria.
She said:
“This is a flexible form of financing that is supposed to help Nigeria adequately respond to humanitarian crises and challenges as well as adequately address the issue of poverty in Nigeria.
“This of course is a victory for the poor and indeed, would bring help and succor which the Renewed Hope Agenda stands for.
“We are therefore grateful to President Bola Tinubu today for the approval given for the creation of the Humanitarian and Poverty Alleviation Trust Fund.
“This is a flexible form of financing that can help us get contributions from different sectors.
“So we’re going to have contributions from government, from the private sector, development partners, individuals, philanthropic individuals, and other innovative forms of crowd-funding and pooling of funds together.
“This to allow for an emergency response to humanitarian crisis in Nigeria.
“Every other day we hear about crisis, the floods and the rest of it. We need to be able to respond adequately as a country.
“Beyond this, the issue of poverty alleviation is one of the agendas of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in his eight-point agenda and we want to be able to tackle it headlong.
“Every year we hope to be able to raise at least $5 billion within this fund and this is from the various sources that I’ve mentioned and even more.
“We are hopeful that with the creation of this funding, we can sit down with all the key stakeholders, including other ministries, and actually work out the full modality of implementation in Nigeria.”
FEC also approved the ratification of the Protocol on the protection of the rights of older persons in Nigeria.
The Minister said:
“We have signed up to the African charter and this has made us one of the countries within Africa that has approved that older people be protected and should not be discriminated against at any level and this gives them a lot of protection and the government of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is interested in their welfare and protecting their rights.
“With the mindset of driving away the local population and moving in to explore, it’s technology that is helping us decipher these.
“We are working with the National Security Adviser (Nuhu Ribadu) the Inspector General of Police Kayode Egbetokun).”
