No fewer than nine million pupils in public schools across Nigeria will benefit from the second phase of the Federal Government school feeding programme.

This was disclosed by the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Farouk, during a press briefing in Abuja.

According to her, one million Nigerians will also receive N5,000 for six months under the Rapid Response Register, an intervention by the Federal Government targeted at urban informal workers impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Speaking on N-Power programme, the Minister said 550,000 applicants qualified for the final selection of the first stream of Batch C and that another 500,000 will subsequently be engaged.

She further disclosed that arrangement has also been concluded to empower 320,000 beneficiaries of the programme who exited batched A and B.

What you should know

The Federal Government of Nigeria established the National Social Investments Programmes (NSIP) in 2016, to tackle poverty and hunger across the country.

The suite of programmes under the NSIP focuses on ensuring a more equitable distribution of resources to vulnerable populations, including children, youth and women

Since 2016, these programmes combined have supported more than 4 million beneficiaries country-wide through a fair and transparent process supported by the Ministry of Budget and National Planning (MBNP) and other notable MDAs with aligned goals.

The Home Grown School Feeding Programme (HGSF) and N-power are part of the NSIP.

About the HGSF 

The HGSF aims to deliver school feeding to young children with a specific focus on increasing school enrollment, reducing the incidence of malnutrition (especially among the poor and those ordinarily unable to eat a meal-a-day), empowering community women as cooks and by supporting small farmers that help stimulate economic growth.

Under the scheme, the pupils will receive free daily meals courtesy of the Federal Government.

Those to benefit will be pupils in primary one to three across 54,619 schools nationwide.

About N-power 

The N-power programme is designed to assist young Nigerians between the ages of 18 to 35 to acquire and develop life-long skills for becoming change makers in their communities and players in the domestic and global markets and given a stipend of N30,000 monthly.