TheCable

Global Citizen, in partnership with the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA), has launched the Nigeria Solidarity Support Fund (NSSF).

The fund, which was launched during a webinar on Thursday, is aimed at providing support for Nigeria’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The NSIA has been signed on as the fund manager.

According to organisers, the fund will be incorporated as a non-governmental charitable foundation.

“These investments will be aimed at implementation of universal healthcare coverage; and improving the health of the poorest women, children, and adolescents in Nigeria which the solidarity funds core response areas directly supports the overarching goals for our Nigeria policy direction,” Michael Sheldrick, Global Citizen chief policy officer, said at the webinar.

Providing more insight into the objectives of the fund, Tunde Folawiyo and Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede, Global Citizen Nigeria chairman and vice-chairman respectively, said the fund will provide “immediate and long-term support in the fight against COVID-19”.

Areas to be covered by the fund include: supporting the most vulnerable, strengthening the domestic healthcare systems, expanding access to rural and community focused universal healthcare e-skilling and re-tooling for Nigeria’s Renaissance post-COVID-19.

In his remarks, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo said the challenge posed by the pandemic cannot be tackled by the public sector alone hence the need for support.

“This stakeholder led-and-resourced mechanism will provide both flexible and rapid response resources to accelerate ongoing efforts to respond to COVID-19 in communities across Nigeria -as well as to strengthen health systems in the aftermath of the acute pandemic response,” Osinbajo said.

“I am also pleased that the fund will support the social investment efforts of the government. You will recollect that asides the precise purpose of providing safety nets for several of the vulnerable and poor in our midst, it also provides jobs, provides credit to several informal traders, smallholder farmers, and several others in our economic value chain who are usually ignored or untouched by many credit facilities and other economic initiatives of the government.”

He also urged Nigerians home and abroad to join the federal government in solidarity against the virus.

The campaign for the fund is scheduled to launch at a later date.