Nine Ways Hajiya Sadiya Umar Farouq Impacted the Humanitarian Affairs Ministry
As Nigerians continue to monitor the resumption and eventual take-off of the newly appointed Ministers in their respective Ministries, the time is apposite for a consideration and review of the past administration and its principal dramatis personae because, as Chinua Achebe wrote, “a man who does not know where the rain began to beat him cannot say where he dried his body.”
This brief write-up will focus on one of President Buhari’s visionary creations and flagship ministries, the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development.
The Ministry, established on August 21, 2019 by His Excellency President Muhammadu Buhari, GCFR to coordinate the management of humanitarian interventions, prevention and mitigations of disasters, as well as coordination of the country’s social investment programmes, was led by its pioneer head, Hajiya Sadiya Umar Farouq.
The following is a brief take on some of the stand-out areas of impact the Ministry has made under her watch, as it sought to institutionalise the ongoing Social Investment Programme into an integrated and impactful undertaking, leading up to the passage of the NSIP Agency Bill designed to promote its sustainability well into the future, for the continuous benefit of many Nigerians in many years to come.
1. NEDC: Following the devastations wrought by the decade long Boko Haram insurgency principally in the North East, the Ministry, working with the North East Development Commission (NEDC) and the UN-OCHA intervened in the areas of health and infrastructure, even as the military continued to engage on the war front. Aside coordinating and providing humanitarian relief, the Ministry under Hajiya Sadiya Umar Farouq’s leadership constructed a 14-bed and 21-bed medical facility, each close to a large IDP Camp in Maiduguri using pre-fabrication technology to serve as COVID-19 Isolation Centres in the North-East immediately following the outbreak of the pandemic.
Added to that, a total of 2,500 houses have been constructed across the 6 North East states under the Commissions, Rapid Response Intervention projects initiative, amongst many other impactful interventions.
2. Zero Hunger: In alignment with SDG 2 (achieving Zero Hunger and eliminating poverty by 2030), the Ministry coordinated the hosting of Zero Hunger Roundtable focused on:
The National Beneficiary Register that was mined for the National Social Register was just 503,552 strong, but working with the National Social Investment Management System (NASIMS) and the National Cash Transfer Office (NCTO) the Ministry grew the register in geometric proportions to encompass 1,997,483 households comprising a total of 9,987,415 individuals. Leveraging private sector expertise and donations, the Ministry anchored the provision of a coordinated response to hunger during COVID-19 period, with CA-COVID as the anchor leg for the private sector.
3. Synergy: As Minister, Hajiya Sadiya viewed collaboration as the name of the game. With that in mind, and in her determined efforts to make quick progress at a new Ministry with a large remit, she promptly built and nurtured an enduring symbiotic and synergistic relationship with several key multilateral and bilateral partners. Working with focused and specialised Technical Working Groups on several fronts, she developed strong and effective relationships with the World Food Programme, the World Bank, USAID, the EU and the UN-OCHA, drawing on their technical expertise and monitoring expertise to support the effective implementation of programmes and interventions at her Ministry.
4. Migrants and Refugees – Working in conjunction with the National Commission for Refugees, Migrants and Internally Displaced Persons (NCFRMI), where she had served previously as Federal Commissioner, the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficked Persons (NAPTIP), the National Senior Citizens Centre (NSCC), and the National Commission for Persons with Disabilities (NCPWD), she facilitated the provision of targeted social protection interventions for the vulnerable, from the IDPs and trafficked women, to the nation’s senior citizens and to people living with disabilities (PWDs) who, incidentally, make up 15% of the Nigerian population.
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5. National Home – Grown School Feeding Programme – The pioneering school feeding programme of Nigeria grew in leaps and bounds under her close watch, with the number of benefitting pupils in Primary 1 to 3 in the nation’s public schools growing from 8.71 million when she took over the programme in 2019 to 10.05 million nationwide, out of which over 8 million have been enumerated and onto the school feeding database as at May 31, 2013. A total of over 127,000 cooks and 100,000 smallholder farmers were engaged in the provision of meals to 54,619 schools, even as the cost of feeding was equally reviewed from the N70 she inherited to N100 per meal per child. This is in addition to the introduction of the Alternate School Programme to carter to the educational and skills development needs of the Out – of – School Children nationwide.
A total of 117 school kitchens were at different stages of completion under the Farm to Kitchen (F2K) initiative introduced under her watch. This is in addition to the distribution of utensils to pupils across beneficiary schools nationwide, de-worming exercise for pupils, and production of various policies, strategic frameworks, guidelines, manuals and handbooks across all aspects of the programme, amongst many other initiatives. Several digital tools have also been deployed, all aimed at strengthening impactful implementation.
6. GEEP (TraderMoni, MarketMoni and FarmerMoni): In line with a Presidential directive, the Ministry, under Hajiya Sadiya Umar Farouq’s lerdership, implemented its flagship loan products of the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP) under the NSIP. These were designed to give access to the poor and vulnerable, farmers, people living with disabilities, as well as underprivileged and marginalized women in recognition of the fact that MSMEs are the life blood of developing economies like Nigeria where they contribute, according to a recent newspaper report on the programme.
In partnership with the National Orientation Agency (NOA), Access Bank, and the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, GEEP facilitated the disbursement of TraderMoni, MarketMoni and FarmerMoniloans to thousands of beneficiaries across the country, with glowing testimonials by many of them.
7. N-Power – Hajiya Sadiya Umar Farouq initiated a series of reforms which helped to streamline the programme, making it more efficient despite the historical issues that plagued the programme. The Ministry also worked hard to clear the backlog of stipends following the migration to a new payment platform. In addition, several trades and skills training opportunities were added onto the programme to empower the beneficiaries with the requisite knowledge to earn a living under the N-Skills programme of N-Power, in partnership with relevant skills and trade organisations.
8. CCT – As Nigerians interrogate the announcement of a planned N8,000 monthly palliative to be paid to 12 million indigent Nigerians from a $800 World Bank loan under the National Social Safety-Nets Programme (NASSP) expansion, mention must be made of Hajiya Sadiya’s successful implementation of the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) initiative under the first phase. Inherited from the Vice President’s office when the Ministry was created in 20019, the NCTO migrated from manual to full digital payment, with NUBAN accounts opened and debit cards issued to all beneficiaries by the respective Payment Service Providers (PSPs). By the time she left office, a total 1,940,004 were receiving monthly cash stipends of N5,000 across all 36 states and the FCT, up from 835,634 across 22 states when she took control of the oversight of the programme in 2019.
9. Transparency: During her time at the Ministry, Hajiya Sadiya Umar Farouq set the bar high when it came to measuring, evaluating and communicating impact. She shared on social media, on a weekly basis, her activities during the week, outlining her itinerary in a first of its kind for a public official. It is hoped that her verifiable successes and achievements at the helms of the Ministry she birthed to life and nurtured into existence within her eventful and impactful four-year stint will be built upon for the overall benefit of the poor and vulnerable population it is designed to serve.
Ezra Joshua
Movement for Rebirth
(A Consortium of NGOs operating in the Humanitarian pace)
