TWENTY three states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Abuja, have received N24.45 billion from the Conditional Grant Schemes as incentive to invest more of their resources in areas of national development priorities and the Millennium Development Goals, MDGs, and Sustainable Development Goals, SDGs.
The fund, disbursed from 2015 till date, was introduced in 2007 with a 50 per cent marching grant from the Federal Government and 50 per cent from the participating states.
Senior Special Assistant to the President on SDGs, Mrs. Adejoke Orelope-Adefulire, who disclosed this while appearing on the Ministerial Media briefing organised by the Presidential Communications Team at the Presidential Villa, Abuja yesterday, explained that the grants were targeted at education, health, water and sanitation projects as well as execute pro-poor projects in a consultative manner with the beneficiaries.
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She said the money was spent on the implementation of 732 water and sanitation facilities; 494 health facilities (new facilities and renovation/rehabilitation); 616 education facilities (new construction, renovation/rehabilitation of block of classrooms; 1,150 women and men were empowered/trained in vocational skills, such as sewing, knitting, detergent and pomade making etc.)
The SSA said there were special intervention projects across the geo-political zones, an initiative she affirmed, was aimed at strategic investment to fast-track the achievement of the SDGs in Nigeria.
The presidential aide added: “Between 2016 and 2021, a record number of projects have been implemented, aimed at providing essential services to accelerate the achievement of the SDGs by ensuring no Nigerian is left behind.
“In the education sector, 8,008 classrooms were constructed and 305 renovated with furnishing to strengthen basic education across the country.
“A total of 4,845 desktop and laptop computers have also been supplied to schools across the country for Information and Communication Technology, ICT, training.
“In the health sector, 195 health centres, comprising Primary Healthcare Centres (PHC) and Mother and Child Centres (MCC) were constructed, complemented with the supply of 199 intensive care and rural ambulances. About 257 incubators and 7,464 regular and automated hospital beds were supplied across tour health facilities.
“In other cross-cutting sectors, OSSAP-SDGs constructed 66 vocational and skills Acquisition centres; supplied 1,294 transformers; provision of 19,266 solar-powered streetlights; 300 housing units for internally displaced persons (IDP) in Borno State; and 925 Solar Boreholes, in addition to several other interventions.”
