By Chimezie Godfrey
The Honourable Minster of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Hajiya Sadiya Umar Farouq, says Federal government, is open to partnership and collaborations in all areas that affects the Ministry.
Stating this in Abuja during a meeting with the Ambassador of the United Arab Emirates, Fahad Obaid Al Taffaq, on Tuesday, she pointed out that three specific components, which include Humanitarian intervention, Disaster management and Social development, were areas the Ministry needed technical support to actualise its mandate.
“We also need support in in the area of empowerment of our displaced and vulnerable population in the society” the Minister added.
Farouq stressed 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, adding that these are areas the Ministry also needs collaboration with partners.
She commended the Embassy for supporting Nigeria in humanitarian issues and looked forward to more collaborations in the years ahead.
Earlier, the Ambassador disclosed his Embassy had executed several programmes and impacted more than 22,000 lives in Nigeria and was 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, which was planned, funded and implemented in Daura and other areas in Katsina State.”
He revealed that 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.
