The Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development has started the training for the National Home-Grown School Feeding Programme (NHGSFP) managers and officers to enhance their capacity.
Speaking at a two-day capacity building workshop in Abuja, Team Lead of the programme, Aishatu Digil said that the purpose of the training was to ensure effective service delivery.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that participants at the training were programme managers and officers of school feeding programme across the states.
The school feeding programme is an initiative of the Federal Government to provide one free nutritious meal to pupils from primary one to three in public schools.
Digil further encouraged the participants to participate actively to enable them gain the actual knowledge that was expected of them for better service delivery.
She said that the participants would be looking at the critical aspect of the school feeding programme that they needed to learn more to ensure they further improved their skills.
According to her, the overall programme will be strengthened.
“The school feeding programme is such a unique intervention among all government interventions.
“It is collaboration – the Federal Government provides the funding, set the template and the guideline on how the programme should be implemented and the state government is responsible for the actual implementation.
“We want to use this opportunity to get back at the same page with the implementers because it is important as the programme is implemented, it is done according the necessary rules and regulations,” she said.
One of the participants, Mr Ifeanyi Onah, School Feeding Programme Manager, Enugu State, while commending the ministry for the initiative said that the capacity building workshop was apt.
Onah said that some materials and equipment were given to the programme managers and officers to aid their coordination in the states.
He said that the tools would help them to do “an on the spot reporting of what is happening at the state level”.
According to him, this will help the ministry to get feedback on the programme timely and do the necessary coordination for proper decision and further planning.
Another participant, Mr Gidado Abubakar, Team Lead, NHGSFP, Bauchi State, said that the training would enable the stakeholders brainstorm on critical areas of the programme for further improvement.
“We are here to look at the challenges, level of implementation and a way forward for a viable programme,” he said.(NAN)
