The federal government has inaugurated a national steering committee to monitor and ensure the success of the Adolescent Girls Initiative for Learning and Empowerment (AGILE), project.
The minister of education, Prof. Tahir Mamman, who inaugurated the committee in Abuja yesterday, urged them to deliver on the job.
AGILE project is a World Bank-assisted project of the ministry of education geared at improving secondary education opportunities for adolescent girls aged between 10 and 20.
LEADERSHIP reports that the federal government recently committed additional $700 million dollars to boost the World Bank’s $500 million funding for the project in Nigeria.
This has raised the tally of the funding to 1.2 billion dollars in the country.
Mammam, however, said the project is at heart of the priority projects of the federal government because of its link to addressing the out of school children challenge.
He charged states government not to allow the project have any handicap, saying that it will keep an eye on it.
World bank country director to Nigeria, Mr. Shubham Chaudhuri, commended the federal government for committing additional $700, million to boost the project.
He said the project was brought in Nigeria to help the country invest in the girl child.
The national coordinator, AGILE Project, Mrs Amina Buba Haruna, said the project has impacted the lives of over 2. 4 million beneficiaries across the seven implementing states.
She noted that more than 1,341, 821 girls have been reached so far while 476,626 girls received scholarship to help them stay in school.