FG to provide free school meals to 25m children by 2030

The Federal Government says it will provide free school meals to 25 million children in the country by 2030 through its National Home Grown School Feeding Programme.

The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, stated this at a media briefing on Thursday in Lagos.

He said the programme was at the moment providing meals to nearly 10 million school children nationwide.

The News Agency of Nigeria reports the briefing was to showcase the achievements of the Muhammadu Buhari Administration in 2021.

Mohammed said: “As you know, the programme is designed as an incentive to boost school enrolment and improve nutrition of primary school pupils.

“The NHGSFP is also sustaining the impact of agricultural and women entrepreneurs in communities to produce and provide a quality meal daily to pupils at the basic education level.

“The programme has empowered over 100,000 cooks and over 100,000 small holder farmers in the local areas where the schools are located, while creating employment opportunities across sectors such as transportation and manufacturing.

“The programme is being extended to children in non-conventional educational settings so that they may access its benefits.”

The Minister also said that the Federal Government had continued to implement the National Social Investment Programmes.

Mohammed said on the directive of the President, the N-Power had been expanded from 500,000 to one million beneficiaries.

According to him, the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme has also been restructured and successfully registered over 600,000 potential beneficiaries in all the 774 local governments nationwide through collaborative partnership with the National Orientation Agency.

He since inception till March 2021, a total of 1,676,799 eligible households across the country were benefiting from monthly N5,000 grant in the Conditional Cash Transfer programme.

The Minister said the figure included the one million urban poor who were included under the directive of the President to further expand the programme due to the COVID-19 pandemic.