No fewer than 21,000 Nigerians affected by flood disasters across the country are to benefit from federal government’s interest-free loan totalling 6.3 billion.
The Minister of State for Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Reduction, Yusuf Sanunu, disclosed this yesterday at a roundtable event to mark this year’s International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction in Abuja.
The event had in attendance Vice President Kashim Shettima, Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Benjamin Kalu, Governor Dauda Lawal of Zamfara State, lawmakers and international partners, among others.
Sununu said the intervention was to mitigate the impact of flooding in the country and address its consequences on food security.
The minister, who also disclosed that the federal government has reached 8.1 million households with over ¦ 300 billion through the Conditional Cash Transfer scheme, said: “As a ministry, under the Hope Agenda of Mr President, it has, through the National Social Investment Agency, done very well in improving the resilience of the local community.
‘’As of today, in terms of conditional cash transfer, over 8.1 million households in Nigeria have been reached with a total sum of over 300 and something billion naira. This has really improved their capacity, improved their health, and education, and the process will continue.
“We also are planning, at both national and state level, to improve on our flood mitigating effect by dolling out, in the next few weeks to come, to 21,000 Nigerians free interest, and also free collateral loan of over N300,000 each. This is to address the issue of crisis in farming so as to mitigate the interest of flooding in Nigeria.’’
He disclosed further efforts to empower displaced persons through a scheme that would provide a ready market for their products.
“Already, we have planted a programme in collaboration with Federal Minister of Agriculture in addressing the food security of internally displaced persons through collaboration with internally displaced persons in their camp and host community.
‘’ The formula of giving the internally displaced person 30 percent of the produce produced by the internally displaced persons, and the government will off-take 70 percent and the money will be given to the internally displaced persons that participated in the scheme as a cash component,” he said.
Speaking earlier, the Director General of the National Emergency Management Agency, NEMA, Zubaida Umar, said Nigeria, like many nations, continued to experience increasing frequency and intensity of disasters, driven by climate change, conflicts, pandemics and technological risks.
According to her, these events are testing the limits of traditional emergency response systems and demanding a more proactive, preventive, and well-financed disaster risk management framework.
Zubaida underscored the need to collectively rethink how to fund resilience to move from reactive, ad-hoc funding of disasters to a multi-stakeholder financing architecture that supports prevention, preparedness and sustainable recovery.
“Your Excellency, this Roundtable also provides the platform for the official launch of two landmark policy instruments that will guide our collective efforts in the years ahead: The NEMA Strategy Plan (2025–2029); The National Disaster Risk Reduction Strategy (2025–2030).”
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