Inter-Ministerial Meeting Charts Way Forward for N-POWER other N-SIPS

….Global focus on digital skills training and acquisition to provide opportunities for youths to digitalise and organise markets
… Technical Working Group to synergise and operationalise inter-ministerial effort.
The Honourable Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Umar Farouq hosted an inter-ministerial dialogue session on Tuesday June 9, 2020 in Abuja.
The session was attended by Honourable Minister Agriculture, Sabo Nanono; Honourable Minister of State Budget and Planning, Clem Agba; Honourable Minister of Health, Osagie Ehanire; Honourable Minister of Women Affairs, Dame Pauline Tallen and Honourable Minister of State Education, Emeka Nwajiuba.
In her remarks at the session, Sadiya Umar Farouq detailed the history of the National Social Investment Programmes especially the N-Power before noting that “the Ministry has undertaken a review and re-appraisal of the programme in order to strengthen the program design and streamline for efficiency.”
Part of the reforms and streamlining will see a reduction in tenure from the current 24 months, launch of the Integrated National Social Investment Programme (I-NSIP) which is intended to reposition N-SIP to cater to vulnerable groups in society by providing them access to shock responsive interventions, life skills & mentorship in order to systematically lift people out of poverty.
Others include enrolling more women on the program to empower them, so that they can earn an income and be more self-sufficient while privileging N-Teach, N-Health and N-Agro as areas of key priority attention.
At the close of the session, the ministers resolved that attention should be paid to helping our youth convert knowledge into skills while providing opportunities for them to digitalise and organise markets and to achieve this they all agreed that emphasis should not be on starting new structures but building on existing ones – from the National Directorate of Employment to Digital Literacy and Skills Acquisition programme (DEEL) as well as the Work Experience Programme (WEP) of the Ministry of Youth & Sports Development.
The ministers also resolved that the core emphasis of the National Social Investment Programmes must be on the youths who account for 70 million of the Nigerian population even as youth unemployment stands at over 20% with 4.5 million entering the job market annually.
Rising, the ministers proposed the convening of a technical working group that will help to synergize and operationalize the inter-ministerial efforts.
Rhoda Ishaku Iliya
Deputy Director Information
10th June, 2020