The Aliko Dangote Foundation (ADF) has restated its readiness to empower additional 106,000 women in four Northern states of the country with the sum of N1.1 billion before the end of this year.
This initiative is in continuation of the Foundation’s micro-grant programme aimed at poverty amelioration through economic empowerment of women.
To facilitate the empowerment initiative’s implementation, the Foundation has commenced the identification of eligible beneficiaries in the affected states of Sokoto, Katsina, Kebbi and Zamfara.
Specifically, under the programme, 23,000 women in Sokoto, 34,000 women in Katsina, 21,000 women in Kebbi and 28,000 women in Zamfara would be empowered.
So far, 334,500 women and youths in Kano, Jigawa, Borno, Yobe, Kogi, Adamawa, Lagos, Nasarawa and Niger states had benefitted from the programme.
The scheme provides recipients with a one-time, un-conditional N10,000 cash grant to meet immediate household consumption and economic needs and provides participants also trainings tailored to improve their income-generating capacities.
To qualify for the benefits, beneficiaries are randomly selected from the target communities with primary consideration for vulnerable women, food-lacking households with infant or children under-five year old, physically challenged, divorcees, widows with multiple dependents as well as extremely poor residents in these communities.
The Programme is being implemented in partnership with state governments to complement their economic empowerment and poverty reduction initiatives.
For the implementation, the Governor of a benefitting state will set up a committee to oversee, in collaboration with the Foundation, in the state.
From 2016, the Foundation automated the beneficiary enrolment and payment processes and provided them with the cash grants and mobile phones and SIM cards.
It would be recalled that the Dangote Micro-Grant scheme, which was launched in 2011 in Kano State, is a N10 billion project, targeting indigenous and vulnerable women across the 774 Local Government areas in the country.
