More than 78,000 girls from seven states of Nigeria have benefitted from the conditional cash transfer of the Adolescent Girls Initiative for Learning and Empowerment project.
The Conditional Cash Transfer is a federal government-World Bank programme to support girl child education in Nigeria.
The Project Coordinator Mrs Amina Haruna stated this in Abuja at an event held to celebrate the International day of the girl child.
Mrs Haruna explained that over 3000 primary and secondary schools have been renovated with water, sanitation and Hygiene WASH facilities to encourage girls in school.
According to her, “each girl child is supported with N10,000 per term.
“We have done phase one for conditional cash transfer, where about 78,100 girls received N10,000 each to encourage beneficiaries come to school in seven states of Borno, Ekiti, Kano, Kaduna, Katsina, Kebbi and Plateau, more states will join soon.”
Haruna added that due to the conditional cash transfer which is an incentive for the girls to come to school, more girls now enrol to school.
She further stated that under the AGILE initiative, the government is also renovating about 4000 classrooms
“We have renovated 3714 classrooms with WASH facilities,’’ Mrs Haruna added.
The AGILE Project Coordinator explained that the International Day of the Girl Child provided opportunity to create further awareness on the rights of girls and the need to provide them with more opportunities.
She acknowledged that the girl-child in the country have over the years faced the challenge of poor access to education.
“Mostly they have been affected by the challenge of Out-of- School Children as well as other negative social factors.”
She noted that a number of steps are being taken to address the challenges facing the girl child issues through government interventions such as the Better Education Service Delivery for All (BESDA), the Adolescent Girls Initiative for Learning and Empowerment (AGILE) and a number of other projects supported by government and non-government organizations.
