Anjor Obande, National Programme Manager of Renewed Hope National Home Grown School Feeding and End Hunger Programme (RH-NHGSFEHP) says, the introduction of the GAIN ENSAND Project is to improve and expand beneficiaries of the programme.
Obande disclosed this at the launching of the GAIN ENSAND Project on Thursday in Abuja.
According to her, the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Dr Betta Edu, and the National Coordinator, NSIPA Hajia Halima Shehu, have expressed their unalloyed support towards the partnership with GAIN.
She added that Edu and Shehu looked forward to a fruitful working relationship with GAlN, especially on the National Home-Grown School Feeding Programme
“Home-Grown School Meals have the potential through coordinated, multi-sectoral, and consolidated efforts and partnership, to significantly contribute to enhancing food and nutrition security in households and communities all over the country.
“The administration of President Bola Tinubu is committed to restructuring the programme in line with the Renewed Hope Agenda, towards ending poverty, reducing the number of out-of-school children and eliminating malnutrition in school-age children.
“Recently at the School Meals Coalition Ministerial Meeting, we committed to expand the programme beneficiaries to include children in military schools, para-military schools, out-of-school children, and children in emergency settings, to reach universal coverage by 2025.
“In addition, we have also committed to introducing school kitchens and gardens through a Farm-to-Kitchen Initiative, to improve implementation and ensure food system transformation,” she said.
She further explained that the project had identified Small Holder Farmers (SHF) as a key linkage and strategy to foster easier and cheaper access to food produced by the cooks/vendors.
“Having considered the objectives and components of GAIN’S ENSAND project, we are recommending a partnership of the NHGSFP SHF Linkage project with the ENSAND project, so that the capacity of the SHF will be strengthened.”
She explained that the RH-NHGSFEHP was establishing a School Meals Basket Fund in accordance with the NHGSFP policy approved in May.
Obande called on domestic and international actors and partners to collaborate in ensuring that the school Meals Basket Fund was successfully
established.
This, according to her, will be a significant investment in the future of Nigerian children, which will contribute to expanding the beneficiaries of the programme and the attainment of
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
“With a strengthened partnership with GAIN, this laudable ENSAND project, large-scale fortification, improving production capacities of local farmers
and institutional capacity building, our goals and objectives can be achieved.
“We at the RH-NHGSFEHP, under the auspice of NSIPA with the support of the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, will continue to work towards achieving our separate mutual objectives.
“These objectives include empowering Nigerians through sustained access to safe and nutritious diets, thereby contributing greatly to the government’s goal of ending hunger and alleviating
poverty,” Obande said.