Rotary President visits Nigeria, offers another $7m grant for disease prevention
Mr Gordon Mclnally, Rotary International President will be on a three-day working visit to Nigeria from March 15-17 with a fresh donation of US$7 million for eradication and disease prevention in the country.
This is according to a statement by
Prof. Emmanuel Lufadeju, Co-ordinator of Rotary International Local Organising Committee(LOC), made available to newsatlarge on Monday in Abuja.
Rotary International is a Non-Governmental foremost Humanitarian Organisation with over 1.5m members worldwide.
It enjoys diplomatic status and sits at the United Nations as observer since 1948. The organisation has been instrumental to the eradication of Polio in Nigeria.
Lufadeju said the latest grant was in addition to the US$14 million given by Rotary about two months ago through the World Health Organisation (WHO) to Nigeria for technical assistance on polio surveillance.
He recalled that Nigeria was also an awardee of Rotary’s US$2 million US dollar grant for the improvement of Maternal and Child Health.
He said there were indications that Mclnally may have audience with President Bola Tinubu on other areas of assistance on disease control and child and maternal health during his visit.
Lufadeju expressed optimism that the visit would enhance existing ties between the Nigerian Government and the Rotary International.
“This visit is to cement the already existing bond between the Federal Government of Nigeria, the WHO, the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) and other stakeholders.
“Nigeria is the awardee of the 2nd ‘Programme of Scale (PoS), a US$2 million US dollar grant, for the improvement of Maternal and Child Health code named;Together for Healthy Families in Nigeria.
“Recently, a new grant amounting to US$14 million was given by Rotary, through the WHO to the Government of Nigeria to enable WHO provide technical assistance on polio surveillance.
“The grant was also a support to avert a resurgence of wild polio as well as to eradicate the Circulating Variant Poliovirus Type 2 (CVPVD2) in the country (CVPVD2),” Lufadeju said.
He added that another US$7Million was to be donated by Rotary to UNICEF for Eradication and disease prevention in Nigeria.
He noted that Rotarians were actively involved in the implementation of all Rotary projects in Nigeria, working closely with the Federal and State Ministries of Health and other national and international partners.
Lufadeju explained that Nigeria was a priority nation to Rotary International, because it was a priority country in Africa and indeed in the world.
He said Nigeria currently had four districts which would increase to six by July 1, 2024 because of the phenomenal growth of membership.
This, he said, would make Nigeria the country with the highest number of districts in Africa as well as the highest contribution in humanitarian giving in the Africa Zone.
“The country is duly recognised by being given the longest duration of Rotary International President’s visit in his Africa Hope Tour,”Lufadeju said.(https://newsatlarge.ng)
