Mastercard Foundation Targets Lifting 30 Million in Africa from Poverty by 2030

Ahamefula Ogbu

Mastercard Foundation, a Canadia registered charity organisation operating in Nigeria and so enAfrican countries has launched programmes aimed at empowering 30 Million vulnerable and disadvantages people in Africa , 10 million of them in Nigeria by 2030

Out of the number, 70 percent of the target beneficiaries are women the gender of which they said fall among the least empowered.

Stating this at an interactive session with the press in Ikeja, Lagos yesterday, Head, Country Communications of Mastercard Foundation, Wura Tunde-Anjous said the programme targets young and vulnerable women they hope to exposed through education, trade, agriculture to ensure they live signifying and fulfilling lives.

Tunde-Anjourine said that they had defined fields and programmes that do not stand against cultures and sensibilities as all they aim to achieve is for the women to complement the role of men in society.

She explained that they distribute the number of those to benefit according to population of African countries where they have been intervening and Nigeria being a more populous country benefitted 10 million slots.

He said their target were youth between 15 and 35 years as the bracket defined by African Union as youth.

The officials of the Foundation who took turn to respond to questions listed advancing agriculture and Relief of poverty as legs for their under which were other ancillary legs of the main subhead.

They listed training and skills training, mainly in all forms of agriculture, fashion designing, and information and social media training working through African organisations.

Most of their programmes are in education which until this year when they penned an agreement with Pan Atlantic University, they use to offer scholarships to Nigeria students who go to various universities outside the country to study. However, with the agreement with a university in Nigeria, students will be enrolled in the institution under their sponsorship.

In an apparent justification for targeting majorly women as beneficiaries, they said, “when you programme for a woman, you programme for everybody.”

Their interventions which are already at advanced stages of benefits are scattered across the six geopolitical zones of the country contributing positively in financial and health sector development also.

They assist youths in achieving their dreams which they Opined helps them to live signifying lives.