Nigeria has pledged to establish a Social Innovation and Research Institute, SIRI, an initiative of the North East Humanitarian and Innovation Hub, NEHIH.
The hub is aimed at developing capacity for social innovation.
A Press release from the Office of the Vice President stated that the Vice President Yemi Osinbajo made the pledge on Tuesday during a virtual meeting with the management of NEHIH.
According to release, the Vice President noted that the idea of establishing a centre for social innovation as conceived by the NEHIH was good.
“I don’t think there is enough attention being paid to the local needs of social innovation. I really think that this proposed institute can do enough in terms of capacity building and leveraging on ideas. And also making a lot of the innovations relevant to our demands and needs here in Nigeria,” the release quoted the Vice President as having said during the meeting.
Professor Osinbajo said “part of the work I think SIRI might end up doing is in looking at our peculiar humanitarian condition, because the humanitarian condition that we find ourselves in Nigeria is enormous, a huge one.
“So, there is an opportunity here to teach the rest of the world how to deal with this, especially from the point of view of education of children in conflict situations, and even entrepreneurship in conflict situation.”
Other participants at the meeting include the coordinator of the Hub, Mr Ahmad Moddibo, the SIRI project coordinator at the hub, Nguveren Mary, among others.
Lateefah Ibrahim
