Mukhtar Abubakar Tafawa Balewa
Yemi Akinsuyi
The National Coordinator, National Poverty Eradication Programme (NAPEP), Mukhtar Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, has said the overall global poverty rate will likely fall below fifteen per cent by 2015.
He attributed the positive development to the current efforts by the Federal Government, through its poverty eradication programme.
The national coordinator disclosed this at the 2012 International Day for the Eradication of Poverty IDEP, with the theme, ‘Ending the Violence of Extreme Poverty; Promoting Empowerment and Building Peace’ and stated that the information given was based on recently updated projection from the World Bank.
He said: “As the transformation agenda of this administration gets underway and with improvements in our Gross Domestic Products (GDP) the expansion of our domestic productivity, we shall achieve significant success in our fights against poverty.
“According to the Secretary-General of United Nation, Mr. Ban Ki-moon, the poorest of the world are being left behind, we need to reach out and lift them into our lifeboat. According to Ki-Moon, now is the time for equity, inclusion, sustainability and women’s empowerment.
“NAPEP will ensure that the President’s agenda of transformation is carried out to the letter, its ultimate target is the eradication of poverty among Nigerians and this task will ensure that Nigerians are provided with an inclusive growth as provided by the Millennium Development Goal (MDGs) that seeks to provide steady source of income, basic health facilities.
“Quality education for all children, skills acquisition for our teeming unemployed youths, access to micro-credit facilities for eligible able bodied women and youths as well as stable and affordable power supply to hasten the development of small and medium enterprises that will move the country and our people forward”, Balewa added.
The national coordinator said the agency targeted 100,000 benefiting households with school-age children, ensuring that they are in school through its Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) throughout the federation.
He said NAPEP has also designed programmes such as farmers’ empowerment programme, youth empowerment programme, promise keeper programme, post flood management programme, all designed to touch the poorest of the poor.
The Secretary of Programmes, Aliyu Yahaya Gusau, said at the Millennium Summit, world leaders committed themselves to cutting by half the number of people living in extreme poverty, whose income is less than one dollar a day, which has now been revised to two dollars a day by year 2015.