Temitope Mustapha, Abuja
The Federal Executive Council Meeting has approved the establishment of the Humanitarian and Poverty Alleviation Fund.
The aim is to generate $5 billion annually to address emergency humanitarian crises.
The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Dr Betta Edu made this known while briefing correspondents at the end of the council meeting presided over by President Bola Tinubu at the presidential villa in Abuja on Monday.
The Minister explained that the funds would be sourced from various channels, including government allocations, contributions from development partners, private sector involvement, and individual contributions.
Financing approach
Edu further said that this flexible financing approach would enable swift responses to humanitarian crises within the country.
“Again, we are grateful to President Bola Tinubu today for the approval given for the creation of the Humanitarian and Poverty Alleviation Trusts 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 is to allow for an emergency response to the humanitarian crisis in Nigeria.” the Minister said.
He said; “Every other day we hear about the 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 8-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.”
