The Federal Government of Nigeria on Friday confirmed that it had released $10 million towards the newly launched Safe Schools Initiative, a project to ensure adequate security in Nigerian schools, particularly in the Northern region.
During the final plenary session of the World Economic Forum on Africa, the Co-ordinating Minister of the Economy and Minister of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, said that President Goodluck Jonathan pledged the fund to support the initiative that will erase fear from the minds of young school girls in Nigeria’s north east that may have been engendered by the abduction of the Chibok school girls .
The Safe Schools Initiative was launched by Nigerian business leaders working with the UN Special Envoy for Global Education, Gordon Brown, the Global Business Coalition for Education and A World at School. They all donated a total of $10 million to kick-start the project, and called on the government of Nigeria to make a similar commitment.
According to the minister, “President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan just announced that he would put $10 million dollars from the government, to match what they had offered.” Okonjo-Iweala stressed that the new development was an additional to all the other efforts the government was making toward rescuing the over 200 schoolgirls abducted by the Boko Haram sect, in Chibok, Borno State, North East of Nigeria.
Other individuals, including the South African Minister of Finance, Pravin Gordhan, Minister of Finance and Economic Planning of Rwanda, Claver Gatete, Executive Vice President and Chief Executive Officer, International Finance Corporation, Jin-Yong Cai, CEO of Investec Asset Management, Hendrik du Toit, Group CEO of Old Mutual, Julian Roberts were on the panel that discussed “Africa’s Growth Outlook”.
