The Honourable Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Hajia Sadiya Umar Farouq has said that the Federal Government is open to partnership and collaborations in the areas of humanitarian issues, disaster management and social development with Agencies and governments.
The Minister in a statement released by Rhoda Ishaku Iliya
who is the Assistant Director Information, stated this during a meeting with the Ambassador of the United Arab Emirates, His Excellency, Fahad Obaid Al Taffaq, in Abuja.
She said the three specific components; Humanitarian intervention, Disaster management as well as Social development are areas the Ministry needs technical support to actualise its mandate.
“We also need support in the area of empowerment of our displaced and vulnerable population in the society” the Minister added.
Farouq mentioned that the Social Intervention Programme of the Federal government has four thematic areas such as the School Feeding Programme, Conditional Cash Transfer, N-Power programme and GEEP, and these are areas that the Ministry also need collaboration with partners.
She commended the Embassy of the United Arab Emirates for supporting the government of Nigeria in humanitarian issues and looked forward to more collaborations in the years ahead.
Earlier, the Ambassador of the United Arab Emirates, His Excellency, Fahad Obaid Al Taffaq disclosed that the UAE Embassy has executed several programmes and impacted more than 22,000 lives in Nigeria and is willing to do more.
He said he was in the Ministry to explore more avenues of collaboration “In October 2019, the Embassy established 2million dollar programme for the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Katsina, it was planned, funded and implemented in Daura and other areas in Katsina State.
The plan was to upgrade the equipment in the primary health centres to tackle eye diseases, glaucoma and cataracts. We have also started the programme with this initiative to train eye doctors, ophthalmologists and optometrists.
“We anticipate the initiative to impact more than 7.8 million people in the North who are suffering from eye diseases. I hope also that we can do similar programmes with the Ministry by identifying the needs of each component of the Ministry and how we can collaborate” the Ambassador noted.