The Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, has said that the Federal Government was determined to take more Nigerians out of poverty and improve the country’s Human Capital Development indices.
Osinbajo stated this yesterday during a meeting with the National Economic Council’s Human Capital Development Core Working Group in Abuja.
According to him, the Federal Government was committed to driving initiatives to accelerate human capital development in the country, because “lifting our people out of poverty is a crucial agenda towards attaining intended developmental outcomes.
“Poverty, as we know, is both a cause and consequence of some of what we are looking at in our human capital development deficit. Really, I think we need to focus a lot more on some of the more creative ways of getting our people out of poverty. And of course, we have some social investment programmes, we are looking at some of the examples of what India did, some have been tried and tested in such huge populations.
“I think there is a need for us to sensitize our people on why we need to get a large segment of our people out of poverty. Recently, we’ve been launching the TraderMoni scheme, which is basically giving credits to petty traders across the country in the markets.
“We must do even more in terms of giving credits and whatever assistance and support to people, obviously the more money people have, the better it is for them, so they can apply their little resources to some of what we are expected to do to improve human capital development.”
Speaking further, the Vice President said NEC would ensure there is high-level representation across the states, especially focused on human capital development.
The meeting was attended by Kaduna State Governor, Nasir el-Rufai, the Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Adewole; Minister of Finance, Zainab Ahmed; Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr. Chris Ngige; and the Minister of Budget and National Planning, Senator Udoma Udo Udoma, Aliko Dangote of the Dangote Foundation, and other senior government officials.
Representatives from development partners such as the World Bank, DFID and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, also attended the meeting and commended the Federal Government for its efforts in accelerating the country’s human capital development indices.
Comments