The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Betta Edu, has restated President Bola Tinubu’s commitment to reducing the humanitarian crisis and poverty in Nigeria.

The minister made this known in a statement on Sunday by her media aide, Rasheed Olanrewaju.

According to the statement, the federal government has taken over the Youth Empowerment and Social Support Operations (YESSO) and the Community and Social Development Project (CSDP) programmes with the flag-off of phase two of the programmes.

The YESSO is a social safety net initiative that enhances increased access of poor and vulnerable youths to employment opportunities and provides targeted cash transfers to the poor, vulnerable, and internally displaced people (IDPs) across Nigeria.

Similarly, the CSDP provides grants for human capital development of communities and vulnerable groups to enable them to embark on various development agenda.

The statement added that the World Bank also supported the programmes.

According to the statement, the sustainability plans of the World Bank after the end of phase one of the YESSO and CSDP is what Mr Tinubu has unfolded in phase 2 through the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation.

“The Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation under Dr Edu deemed it fit to put proper structures in place before the smooth take-off of the second phase of the programme to ensure goal delivery and attract even other development partners, hence the recent appointments.

“The two programmes are now wholly owned by the federal government under the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation.

“Their take-off will be funded by the National Social Safety Net office as signed in the sustainability plan of the programmes.

“The new strategy to change the programme structure for effective delivery based on the new mandate given to the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation birthed the 2.0 CSDP and Yesso programmes,’’ it stated.

According to the statement, the legal agreement between Nigeria and the World Bank is not tampered with.

(NAN)