World Bank Disburses N1.3bn COVID-19 Intervention Fund To Niger

Nigeria’s Government in collaboration with World Bank has released N1.3 billion to Niger Sate to cushion the negative impact of COVID-19 pandemic.

General Manager, Niger State Community and Social Development Agency (NSCSDA), Yusuf Usman who disclosed this at a one day capacity training workshop, said the fund is for the implementation of Nigeria COVID-19 Action Recovery and Economic Stimulus (NG-CARES), intervention.

Usman explained that Niger State Government has keyed into the NG-CARES programme as declared by the Federal Government and had made significant achievements which include, increased food security, better functioning of food supply chains for the poor household, supported by Fadama. facilitating recovery and enhancing capacities of medium and small micro enterprises.

The NSCSDA boss noted that the pandemic has caused a lot of hardship to households as well as rendering small businesses ineffective.

“Pandemic has affected lives and livelihood of people, that led to losses in non-labour income, increase in food insecurity and closure of micro household enterprises,” Usman said.

He further stated that the World Bank was not particular on the construction of new projects but, how the structures were being utilized by the end users.
He, however, enjoined participants at the training to make best use of the workshop to achieve success in the new project expected to last for 18 months.

Participants were drawn across the 25 local government councils of the state.