AFDB supports northeast recovery funds with $258m grant

• Saudi Arabia gives $10m relief materials to IDPs
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo yesterday unveiled $258 million donation by the African Development Bank (AFDB) to support recovery efforts in the northeast.

The fund, in collaboration with Presidential Committee on the North East Initiative is titled: “Inclusive Basic Service Delivery and Livelihood Empowerment Integrated Project (IBSIP).

Osinbajo said: “It has been gratifying to note how enthusiastically our friends and partners have rallied to our support, mobilising resources to tackle the crisis in the northeast.

“We would like to express the profound appreciation of the Federal Government to the bank for being a partner in progress with us. When the story of the region’s recovery would be told, the work of the AFDB will occupy a well-merited and prominent chapter.”

Governors of five northeast states, ministers, development partners and key stakeholders attended the launch.President of AFDB, Dr. Akinwumi A. Adesina said the challenge is on the implementing agencies to deliver the basic services by contributing to the quick recovery of the Northeast region.

Represented by Senior Director, Nigeria Country Department, Ebrima Faal, he noted that the programme would address rural electrification.

This includes integrated energy systems for pumping of water, lighting for institutions and community centres providing for cold chains in health units and energy for drip irrigation.

This initiative is coming on the heels of over 20,000 persons killed, more that two million people displaced from their homes and communities, as well as destroyed infrastructure worth $9 billion.Also, over 400,000 houses, thousands of schools, hospitals and other public buildings, had also been destroyed.

The fund is aimed at improving the quality life of people in the northeast through the restoration of basic services.
In a related development, King of Saudi Arabia, Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, has donated relief materials of $10 million (N3.6 billion) to victims of Boko Haram insurgency in the Northeast.

The monarch of the Islamic nation presented the relief materials yesterday through the King Salman Humanitarian Centre to the people through the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA).

Abdulaziz Al Saud, who was represented by the Saudi Ambassador to Nigeria, Nasir Al Subai, commenced the distribution at Monguno Teachers Village IDPs camp, Maiduguri. He said the relief materials, which comprise mainly of food items, were meant for 840,000 IDPs in insurgency-affected states of Borno, Adamawa and Yobe. Minister for Defence, Mansur Dan-Ali, urged the Saudi Arabian authorities to set a pace for the “understanding and preaching” of Islamic knowledge.”