Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, on Wednesday, said the Federal Government is focusing on more creative ways of getting Nigerians out of poverty and also improving the country’s Human Capital Development indices.
He stated this while chairing a meeting of the National Economic Council (NEC), Steering Committee on Human Capital Development at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
Osinbajo said that the Federal Government was committed to lifting Nigerians out of poverty as a crucial agenda towards attaining intended development outcomes.
He said, “Poverty, as we know, is both a cause and consequence of some of what we are looking at in our human capital development deficit.
“Really, I think we need to focus a lot more on some of the more creative ways of getting our people out of poverty.
“And of course, we have some social investment programmes, we are looking at some of the examples of what India did, some have been tried and tested in such huge populations.
“I think there is a need for us to sensitise our people to why we need to get a large segment of our people out of poverty. Recently, we have been launching the TraderMoni scheme, which is basically giving credits to petty traders across the country in the markets and all that.
“We must do even more in terms of giving credits and whatever assistance and support to people.
“Obviously, the more money people have, the better it is for them, so they can apply their little resources to some of what we are expected to do to improve human capital development.”
The Vice President harped on the importance of improving data collection at all levels so as to ensure effective tracking of Human Capital Development outcome areas in the states.
The meeting was attended by the Minister of Finance, Zainab Ahmed; Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr Chris Ngige; Minister of Budget and National Planning, Sen. Udoma Udo Udoma; President, Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote; Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Adewole and Kaduna State Governor, Malam Nasir El-Rufai.