USAID inaugurates IDPs support project in Zamfara

The United States Agency for International Development’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance has inaugurated an emergency programme to support Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Zamfara.

Our correspondent reports that the “Integrated Emergency Response to Displaced Population” project was inaugurated on Tuesday in Gusau.

The Team Lead of the project, Mrs Rukayya Jibril said the project would be implemented by the Bureau and International Rescue Committee (IRC), in collaboration with relevant government ministries and agencies in the state.

Jibril explained that the project would provide integrated multi sectoral support across Health, Nutrition, Water and Sanitation, as well as multipurpose cash support to IDPs in the state.

According to her, the IDP camps in Anka and Gusau local government areas were selected for the project.

“In health sector we are targeting to provide health services to 17,281 IDPs; for nutrition we target 48,075 under five children, while 8,500 IDPs were targeted to benefit for safe drinking water and sanitation.

“A total of 8,800 IDPs are expected to benefit from social protection support of the project while 420 IDPs households will be selected for multi purpose cash assistance.

“In Anka we have 29,168 individual IDPs representing 19 percent of the total IDPs population in the state, while Gusau has 21,605 IDPs individuals, representing 14 percent of the total IDPs in the state,” Jibril explained.

In his remarks, the Secretary to the State Government (SSG), Alhaji Abubakar Nakwada commended the USAID and ICR for selecting Zamfara to benefit from the project.

Nakwada represented by the Permanent Secretary Cabinet Affairs, Dr Lawal Hussein described the project as timely considering the social challenges in the state which were largely caused by insecurity.

The SSG assured that the state government would fully support the implementation of the project.