At least 648,000 indigenes of Gombe State have directly benefited from the Nigeria COVID-19 Action Recovery and Economic Stimulus (NG-CARES) programme since its inception in 2022, an official has said.

The GO-CARES coordinator, Haruna Imam, disclosed this on Thursday, during the North-East consultative meeting, held to review the project’s performance in Gombe.

Mr Imam said the interventions had touched lives in critical areas, such as the monthly stipend, cash transfer grants for small businesses, provision of farm inputs, and support for basic social services in education, water supply, and nutrition.

He said that over N40 billion has so far been spent in the state, with the hope that the next phase would achieve even more.

The coordinator also said the programme’s development objective was to assist the poor and vulnerable, strengthen food security, and expand adaptive social safety nets.

“Communities apply for interventions, while beneficiaries are identified through the state’s social register,” Mr Imam said.

In a welcome address, the national coordinator of NG-CARES, Abdulkarim Obaje, said the initiative was conceived by the federal government, with the World Bank support, as a deliberate strategy to cushion the socio-economic impact of shocks.

Mr Obaje was represented at the meeting by a monitoring and evaluation expert, Abdulsalam Olusola.

Also speaking, Auwal Muhammed, the director of economic growth at the Federal Ministry of Budget and Economic Planning and chairman of the Federal CARES Technical Committee, said that while NG-CARES had made commendable progress, much work still needed to be done in the North-East.

He urged state governments in the region to invest more in human capital development and poverty reduction.

The World Bank social protection specialist, Fanen Ade, said NG-CARES, initially launched in response to COVID-19, had since been restructured to build resilience against poverty, violence, and economic shocks.

Mr Ade said the current phase covered 2020 to 2025, with the second phase planned for 2026 to 2028.

In a remark, Governor Inuwa Yahaya described the state’s implementation of NG-CARES as highly impactful.

The governor, represented by the Commissioner for Trade, Industry and Tourism, Nasiru Aliyu, expressed optimism that Gombe would successfully transition from NG-CARES 1.0 to 2.0.

He pledged his commitment to partnering with the programme, particularly in agriculture, infrastructure, and nutrition.

(NAN)